When Protest Goes Too Far

Policy and public opinion are turning against the extreme tactics of Operation Rescue and other anti-abortion demonstrators.

Recall the so-called “Summer of Mercy” in 1991, when they shut down three family-planning clinics, terrorizing patients and staff in Wichita, Kan. More of the same is planned for women seeking abortions and the physicians who perform them during demonstrations already under way in seven so-called “Cities of Refuge.”

Instead of refuge, however, Operation Rescue warns clinic physicians, and indeed, patients, that they will find no place to hide. Rather than compassion toward those whose opinions differ from their own and toward women exercising their legal right to an abortion, demonstrators too often display intolerance.

In response, a large turnout by abortion-rights advocates last year, trained in nonviolent techniques, forced Operation Rescue to retreat from demonstrations in Buffalo, N.Y., and elsewhere. Clinics remained open. San Jose is among the seven cities targeted this year for the 10-day demonstration. The others include Dallas, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Jackson, Miss., and Melbourne, Fla. Hundreds of abortion-rights volunteers in each of these cities have been trained in techniques to keep clinics open. Local and state officials have prepared for the siege as well. San Jose’s City Council adopted two ordinances to curb the protests. One creates an eight-foot “bubble zone” around patients seeking entry to a clinic; the other forbids picketing within 300 feet of a target’s home. A high chain-link fence now surrounds a Minneapolis clinic. Doctors in other clinics wear bulletproof vests on the job and keep the shades on clinic windows drawn.

No wonder. No one can forget the murder last March of a Florida physician who performed abortions by an anti-abortion extremist. That outrage prompted passage of local laws against stalking doctors and blocking clinic access. The murder also alienated moderate anti-abortion advocates.

Yet physical violence and intimidation continues. Doctors have had their homes vandalized; clinics have been doused with noxious chemicals; death threats against clinic workers have become routine. Those who oppose abortion have every constitutional right to make their views known; but they do not have the right to physically threaten or deny clinic access to others. Strong federal legislation should replace the patchwork of local laws protecting clinic access.

Such legislation has stalled in Congress; it should pass quickly.