Neighbors--in Name Only : For a Dallas Abortion Clinic, Operation Rescue Is Too Close for Comfort

They must surely be among America’s most unlikely neighbors: a busy abortion clinic and the national headquarters of Operation Rescue, side by side in a secluded office complex in the northeastern part of this city.

The clinic, called A Choice for Women, employs as its marketing director Norma McCorvey--the pseudonymous Jane Roe of the landmark Supreme Court case that affirmed a constitutional right to abortion. Operation Rescue is led by evangelist Flip Benham, whose antiabortion crusade has made its reputation by blocking clinic entrances. Nearly every day, a little drama plays out as flare-ups and skirmishes point up the antipathy one office neighbor feels toward the other.

“They look like a pack of vultures circling the carcass,” said McCorvey of the Operation Rescue volunteers who waylay patients in the parking lot in front of the clinic. “People come in here upset and crying during a period that is already emotional for them.”

Ronda Mackey, a 28-year-old Operation Rescue volunteer, likens the standoff to a battlefield. “We’re right in the middle of a war here,” she said, smoothing the hair of daughter Chelsea, a toddler who accompanies Mackey daily.

The aging one-story complex housing the rivals is U-shaped, with a large parking lot in the center. Before becoming tenants last month, Operation Rescue volunteers were restricted to a public road skirting the parking lot, about 100 yards from the clinic doors. Now holding a three-year lease, the protesters have access to the private parking lot in front of the clinic--and to the women seeking abortions there.

Benham attributes the move to divine intervention. When his lease near a Dallas hospital expired in February, he said, a real estate agent who attends his church unexpectedly offered the present site rent-free. “This is not a shrewd new tactic we thought of,” Benham said. “We are not smart or courageous enough to have orchestrated this. There is no question but there is the providential hand of God.”

Janie Bush, executive director of Dallas’ Choice Foundation, takes a dimmer view. “There’s no doubt in my mind that moving next door is a deliberate attempt to close the clinic,” she said. “It’s a tactic that’s been around for years and is included in the book ’99 Ways to Close an Abortion Clinic.’ ”

While Operation Rescue volunteers answer the telephone with the name of the organization, the sign out front reads LifeChoices Inc. “They’ve created a name that’s similar to A Choice for Women,” Bush said. “They’re trying to confuse people to mistakenly go inside their doors.”

In spite of their differences, there is an uneasy truce for part of the week as each camp goes about its daily business. McCorvey airily waves hello to Benham, whom she calls “Flipper.” Benham calls the 47-year-old McCorvey “a precious young lady who has gone deeply astray.” One of Mackey’s daughters interviewed McCorvey for a school paper. McCorvey gave Benham the “Book of Runes,” a mystical tome she considers her bible.

But Thursday through Saturday, when abortions are performed at the clinic, all bets are off.

Recently, a teen-ager clutching a teddy bear faced a group of antiabortionists outside the clinic. “All they want is your money. They don’t care about you. You’re going to regret this for the rest of your life,” they told her over and over.

The teen-ager listened, but shook her head as they tried to press antiabortion pamphlets into her hands. “No, no, my decision is made,” she said softly as her boyfriend gently nudged her toward the door.

Clinic escorts who stand watch by the front door generally don’t intervene unless it appears a patient wants help. At this location, Operation Rescue has agreed to try to keep inflammatory signs and pictures out of the parking lot.

McCorvey, who calls the Roe vs. Wade decision “my law,” has little patience with those who seek to reverse it. When she began working at the clinic, she said, she lay down on an examining room table, put her feet in the stirrups and tried imagining the path her life might have taken had abortion been a legal option in Texas in 1969. At that time, McCorvey--pregnant, broke and desperate--agreed to become the anonymous plaintiff in a suit contesting Texas’ abortion laws. Roe vs. Wade was not decided in time to let McCorvey end the unwanted pregnancy, and she put the baby up for adoption in June, 1970.

So strong are her convictions--and so incensed is she at the sight of antiabortion protesters--that McCorvey has lately tried to steer clear on days when abortions are performed at the clinic. But sometimes emotion overcomes reason. Recently, when Mackey implored a young woman walking toward the clinic to change her mind, McCorvey burst from the door and charged toward her.

“It’s none of your business, leave her alone,” McCorvey said angrily, waving her arms as if to shoo away a swarm of mosquitoes. “Get out of her face.” Bush put an arm around McCorvey’s shoulder and led her away, like a coach leading a boxer into a neutral corner.

“After that baby is dead, your day is not going to be good,” Mackey called out.

“Save it for somebody else,” McCorvey retorted, glancing over her shoulder. “It’s her decision.”

*

In the clinic waiting room, a young man studied the mauve carpet as he considered the gantlet he and his girlfriend just ran outside. “You know, you don’t come here without first thinking long and hard about it,” he said slowly. “It took two weeks for us to decide what we wanted to do. Then you get here and are confronted by those people. They don’t change your mind. They just make a difficult situation worse.” Some sharing the overstuffed couches nodded in silent agreement, while others shifted uneasily, averting their gaze.

Down the hall, past a door secured with a coded electronic lock, is McCorvey’s office, decorated with silk flowers and dimly lit by a halogen lamp. Here, McCorvey makes phone appointments and counsels women who have no idea that the person they’re speaking to made it possible for them to seek a legal abortion.

“Hello, this is Norma. What’s your name, dear?” asked McCorvey, pen poised above a client information sheet. “OK, hon, about how far along do you think you are? Well, when was the first day of your last menstrual period?”

After McCorvey hung up the phone, she briskly completed an appointment form. “This is what I do all day; this is what I believe in,” she said. “It’s so important to me that people are able to make decisions about their own bodies.”

On the other side of the thin wall, Mackey wished she still had the computers and office furniture that came with the movers April 1. Shortly after Operation Rescue relocated, the belongings were seized by marshals to be auctioned as a first installment on a $1.01-million judgment against the organization granted by a Houston jury in 1994. In that case, Operation Rescue and other abortion protest groups were found to have conspired to hinder business at Planned Parenthood and nine other clinics during the 1992 Republic National Convention in Houston.

Now Operation Rescue is busy setting up the office again, using furniture and equipment leased from supporters for $1 a year. “If we don’t own it, they can’t seize it,” Mackey said as she led the way around the 800-square-foot office.

She pointed to the office wall they share with the clinic next door. Sometimes they lay their hands on the plaster and pray. “We pray God will open their eyes to the truth,” Mackey said. “Here in the midst of the battle, you somehow feel a greater responsibility to stop what’s going on, to tell those women that there are other choices and that we will help.”

*

With each side showing zero tolerance for the other’s views, the police are often called in to referee spats. On a recent Saturday, two squad cars responded to a complaint by an Operation Rescue volunteer who said a patient assaulted him in the parking lot.

A Dallas police officer took statements from clinic workers and Operation Rescue volunteers before deciding that the patient acted in self-defense. No arrests were made. “It’s the same thing over and over. You feel like a pawn in their game,” said the weary officer, who asked not to be identified. “You feel like you’re here for retaliation, and not what police are for.

“There’s a big conflict of interest out here,” he added as he climbed into his car. “It’s just a hassle now but it’s a situation ripe for trouble.”

The squad cars pulled away, certain to return another day. Huddled near doorways 15 yards apart, each neighbor glared at the other as their wary standoff continued in the hot Texas sun.