Security at Abortion Clinics Is Questioned : Protests: Indiana demonstrations spotlight the inconsistencies in federal officials’ protection plans, some say.

In the first test of the Clinton Administration’s resolve to guard abortion clinics across the country, federal marshals on Thursday monitored a peaceful protest at a clinic here while abortion-rights leaders complained that uneven responses and official uncertainty have marred the government’s security arrangements.

At least two marshals watched from a gray van as 300 anti-abortion protesters sang “Ave Maria” and hoisted photographs of dead fetuses near a Women’s Health Organization clinic that has been the scene of repeated demonstrations and arrests in recent years. A longstanding federal court injunction hampered protesters’ efforts to dissuade 14 clients from going into the clinic.

Flip Benham, director of Operation Rescue, vowed during a rain-battered prayer service that the anti-abortion protesters--in larger numbers--would continue their efforts through the weekend.

“Friday’s here, but Sunday’s coming!” he thundered.

National abortion-rights leaders who descended on Ft. Wayne in response to the Operation Rescue protests here and in South Bend, Ind., said that in the two days since Justice Department officials announced their clinic security policy, there have been glaring disparities in the actions taken by marshals in different cities.

Marshals in South Bend made regular sweeps through an abortion clinic this week, activists said. But in Ft. Wayne, marshals have kept to their van, watching but not confronting strangers who approach the clinic’s entrance. Abortion-rights leaders report similar disparities in other cities.

While making preparations for the Ft. Wayne protest, abortion-rights leaders also said they were unable to get a clear reading from federal officials concerning how marshals would deal with possible violence at the demonstrations.

One abortion-rights advocate said the officials also were unable to say whether marshals would monitor and record protesters’ compliance with court injunctions and federal laws that restrict their activities.

“We certainly appreciate (the marshals’) presence, but we’re having a hard time understanding exactly what their mission is--and we’re not sure they know either,” said Susan Hill, national director of the Women’s Health Organization.

Nancy Kohsin-Kintigh of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s clinic defense project, said talks with federal officials, held in Ft. Wayne on Wednesday, were strained. “We left without basic questions answered,” she said.

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Justice Department officials said Thursday that their actions are limited by the scope of federal law and by time. At a news briefing Thursday, Associate Atty. Gen. John Schmidt said the U.S. Marshals Service cannot “provide protection for all (clinics) and cannot provide protection indefinitely.”

Schmidt said Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and officials of the Marshals Service would consult with local police agencies before deciding which of the more than 3,000 abortion clinics in the United States will be protected. There are more than 2,600 marshals stations across the nation.

Justice Department officials have not made public the locations of clinics already under guard, but officials and abortion-rights leaders say marshals have been posted at the sites of some of the nation’s most bitter abortion clashes--in Milwaukee; Des Moines; Wichita, Kan.; Falls Church, Va.; Pensacola, Fla.; Melbourne, Fla.; Gulfport, Miss.; Jackson, Miss. and Fargo, N.D.

Two marshals have been sent to Ft. Wayne, where three other marshals already are stationed. On Thursday, the two marshals monitoring the anti-abortion protest declined to specify their missions. Said one: “We’re here to observe.”

Federal officials won praise from Dr. U. George Klopfer, an abortion doctor who was the target of the protest in Ft. Wayne.

Klopfer, a blunt-spoken physician who changes motels frequently and scorns guards, agreed to federal protection this week after an anti-abortion activist was arrested in the fatal shooting of a doctor and his escort outside a Pensacola, Fla., clinic last Friday.

“It’s unrealistic for organizations to expect the Feds to do everything we’d like them to do,” he said.

Klopfer said he has been told that his movements are being monitored by FBI agents, but when he arrived in Ft. Wayne on Thursday, he was followed only by a car packed with abortion-rights escorts from his South Bend clinic.

The Feminist Majority also announced Thursday that volunteer escorts will wear bulletproof vests when they accompany women visiting Pensacola’s two clinics.

Dr. John Britton, 69, and James H. Barrett, 74, were killed as the doctor arrived for work at the Ladies Center in Pensacola last Friday. Barrett’s wife, June, 68, was wounded in the attack.

Police have charged Paul Hill, a former Presbyterian minister and outspoken abortion foe, with murder. He is being held without bond.

The Senate on Thursday voted, 98 to 0, to condemn the Pensacola slayings and called on federal law enforcement agencies to ensure protection of abortion clinics.

“Like it or not, abortion is a legal medical procedure in this country,” said Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.). “There is no reason for doctors who provide legal abortion services to be threatened as they are.”

Lautenberg was the primary sponsor of the measure.

“Those of us that are pro-life and feel very strongly about protecting the lives of the unborn also feel very strongly about protecting the lives of those that are born,” said Sen. Robert C. Smith (R-N.H.).

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story from Washington.