Police 'rescue' Operation Rescue during clinic attack

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SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1989 3 Outnumbered three-to-one by pro-choice activists at the San Rafael, Calif., Planned Parenthood clinic on Oct. 7, anti-choice Operation Rescue (OR) blockaders were "rescued" by the San Rafael police and the California Highway Patrol.

The police, playing their traditional role of strikebreakers, assisted OR in denying women access to the clinic by keeping clinic defenders away from the doors and taking more than four hours to arrest the trespassers. • Despite the treachery of the police, the clinic defense in this small Marin County town, 15 miles north of San Francisco, was another victory for the pro-choice movement. OR did not stop any abortions that day; all patients scheduled for services were treated.

Anti-choice forces hit

Anticipating a hit by OR on the weekend of Oct. 7, Bay Area chapters of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the Bay Area Coalition Against Operation Rescue (BACAOR) successfully mobilized more than 600 pro-choice activists in the Bay Area from Marin County to San Jose.

Weeks were spent training hundreds of activists in clinic defense. NOW trained a special team of legal observers and clinic facilitators. This advance work paid off well. Many activists commented on the high degree of organization this time around.

At 6 a.m. on Oct. 7, clinic defenders gathered at 10 Bay Area clinics. When pro-choice infiltrators of the OR car caravan received word where the OR hit would be, these volunteers converged on San Rafael to re-enforce the local clinic defense forces.

Pro-choice activists successfully held the doors against a line of OR, who leaned with their full weight into the pro-choice defenders in an attempt to break through. More OR members tried to establish a foothold for a larger blockade by sitting down near the clinic doors. Due to the large numbers of pro-choice defenders, however, this attempt was futile.

Meanwhile, San Rafael police congregated across the street from the clinic and watched the struggle for access to the clinic. They did nothing to enforce a statewide court injunction which prohibits OR from being within 15 feet of any family-planning clinic.

As the ranks of the pro-choice defenders grew, they were able to nonviolently move the OR violators from the doors and provide a corridor to the clinic. At least two patients were able to enter the clinic.

At this point, the police donned riot gear, moved in, and established a line between the pro-choice defenders and OR. It looked like the police would at last enforce the law and clear the blockaders away from the clinic property. Instead, the police kept pro-choice defenders from removing OR. All other patients had to be taken to a nearby clinic for services.

The delay in gaining access to the clinic was exacerbated by negotiations carried out between the police and OR leader Jeffrey White. Although the injunction specifically prohibited him from doing so-and although clinic defenders chanted for his arrest—police allowed White to travel freely behind police lines. Pro-choice leaders, by contrast, were physically stopped by police from conferring with clinic defenders behind police lines.

After more than two hours, arrests of the OR criminals finally began—one at a time. It took the police more than four hours to arrest 96 OR members; in the meantime, the clinic was kept closed. Several pro-choice defenders sarcastically compared the painfully slow arrests of OR to the speed with which police have moved against civil rights or antiwar demonstrators.

Pro-choice activists later learned that the fraternization between OR and police was much more extensive. An off-duty San Jose police officer drove Jeffrey White to the San Rafael clinic and participated in the clinic blockade. At OR's prayer service the night before, a San Francisco police chaplain, the Rev. Mike Ryan, was introduced to the audience and praised for his anti-choice activities.

Lessons to be learned The San Rafael clinic defense provides many lessons for the pro-choice movement. In defending women's access to family-planning clinics, the pro-choice movement is acting to uphold and defend the law of the land. Abortion is still legal. Women have the right to seek services in these clinics, and the clinics have the right to operate and be accessible to women.

Though this is obvious to most, some people within the movement see the pro-choice defenders as demonstrators. This is wrong. Clinic defense is not a demonstration at the clinics-it is not an exercise of free speech. It is the defense of women's rights against the illegal blockade of anti-choice fanatics.

OR has no right to be at the clinics. It is as if the KKK was demonstrating at a voting booth to prevent Blacks from voting in the South.

The police are supposed to enforce the law but, when the law upholds the rights of women (or Blacks and workers) the police Operation Rescue fanatics were outnumbered before police intervened.

tend to look the other way. That is why the clinics must be defended by the movement, with no reliance on the police.

Since most cities are controlled by the Democratic Party, the complicity of the police with OR is the responsibily of the Democratic Party and a demonstration that the "liberal" Democrats cannot be counted on to defend women's rights.

We must continue to demand that city officials—including the mayor, the city council, and the police-enforce the law and keep the clinics accessible. But given the experiences of the last year, with escalating attacks by OR and police inaction—or action so slow as to be counterproductive-the responsibility of defending women's access to family-planning clinics rests with NOW and the rest of the pro-choice movement.

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I support abortion in cases of rape and incest, but im against the government funding them for the poor.... ...Thats why lm urging poor women to just say no, to rape and incest!... estimated in 1987 that one forcible rape occurs in the United States every six minutes.

In addition to crime statistics, various feminist scholars and groups have begun studying the incidence of so-called date rape. These figures are often not considered in statistics such as the FBI's.

The idea that women owe some sexual satisfaction to any man who they go out with is still a widespread one. A May 1989 survey in The New York Times, for example, reported that 50 percent of junior high school students in Rhode Island thought it would be acceptable to rape a woman if a man had spent at least $15 on her.

When it comes to surveys of incest and other types of sexual abuse suffered by children, high numbers of women report having been abused before reaching the age of 18. As survivors of incest and other assaults become more free to speak out, the numbers will continue to rise.

Marital rape

NOW reports on two surveys of women in Boston and San Francisco in which 10 percent and 14 percent respectively reported that their husbands had used force or threats of force to "persuade" them to have sex with them. In most states, however, rape of a wife is not considered rape in the legal system. A husband is legally entitled to his conjugal rights.

Susan Estrich explains it succinctly in her 1987 book "Real Rape" when she says, "In most states you can rape your wife with greater impunity than you can rape your girlfriend or neighbor. As of 1985, only 10 states have completely eliminated the marital exemption. Nine states provide an absolute ex-

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94, adles, Our Joseph Ryan/Socialist Action