Many supporters wore buttons that read "Our Jesus says this clinic stays OPEN!"
[Fox News - 1/19/02] WICHITA, Kan.ÊÑÊA doctor who was once shot by an anti-abortion protester marked the 29th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision by offering free abortions Saturday, a move that drew more than 100 protesters to his clinic.
With the protesters yelling and praying from beyond a fence, Dr. George Tiller spoke to 65 supporters Saturday morning and warned them that abortion rights are at a fragile point.
"This is an alert. It is a wakeup call," Tiller said. "We are sort of a huddled mass here together, a few of us arrayed against a vast enemy. We are armed with our attitude and our conviction that men and women are reproductively equal."
Former President Clinton had thwarted opponents' attempts to curb access to abortions, legalized by a Supreme Court decision Jan. 22, 1973. President Bush, however, opposes abortion, and conservatives in Congress and several states have pushed for abortion restrictions.
In a proclamation late Friday, Bush declared Sunday to be National Sanctity of Human Life Day. "Unborn children should be welcomed in life and protected in law," he said.
Among those joining Tiller on Saturday was Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who successfully challenged a Nebraska ban on so-called "partial-birth" abortion, a type of late-term abortion. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to strike down the measure in 2000. More than half the states have passed similar bans.
"This clinic has weathered the opposition probably more than any other place in the United States, and they have done it so well," Carhart said.
Tiller, one of the few other physicians in the country to perform late-term abortions, has been a continued focus of anti-abortion protesters. His clinic was bombed in 1985, and he was shot in both arms by an abortion protester in 1993 Ñ but returned to work the next day. The 1991 "Summer of Mercy" campaign, which resulted in nearly 2,700 arrests, targeted his clinic. Protesters targeted the clinic again last summer.
Tiller said Saturday at least 32 low-income women had signed up for the free first-trimester abortions.
Outside the clinic, protesters decried the offer as a publicity stunt.
[posted 1/20/02]
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