Scores Seized in Protest at Phila. Abortion Clinic

PHILADELPHIA —  Authorities today arrested scores of anti-abortion demonstrators who blocked the doors of a women’s clinic in a protest at which they weepingly displayed a 19-week-old fetus.

About 400 abortion opponents gathered at the Northeast Women’s Center, the day after a previous demonstration at a clinic in nearby Paoli resulted in 591 arrests.

The protesters blocked doors to the women’s center in defiance of a federal court order, and arrests began after the order was read to them and they refused to disperse. They submitted peacefully to officers and were carried away in sheriff’s department buses 32 at a time.

The demonstrators were to be charged with defiant trespass, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of a $300 fine and 90 days in jail, police said.

Fetus Displayed

“We’re going to prevent them from doing any abortions,” said Juli Loesch, a spokeswoman for Operation Rescue, a coalition based in Binghamton, N.Y., that organized the protest. “We think that saving one life makes thousands and thousands of sacrifices worthwhile.”

Seven patients were already inside the clinic before the demonstrators began arriving, said Frances Sheehan, a pro-choice activist.

Randall A. Terry, national director of Operation Rescue, displayed the fetus in a box, draped with cloth.

“It is an aborted baby,” said Lowell Patterson, an Operation Rescue spokesman. “We are challenging the media to show it. . . . We believe if we could get that in print, the attitudes toward abortion would change. We believe the pictures are what upset people so much.”

Patterson said he did not know the source of the fetus or whether it had been purchased.