Tension levels rising at abortion protests outside Englewood clinic - NorthJersey.com

ELIZABETH LARA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Demonstrators outside one of the state's largest abortion clinics in Englewood on Nov. 16.

Twenty-four years ago, Englewood Police Chief Arthur O’Keefe was in the middle of the shoving and shouting matches between hundreds of abortion opponents and abortion-rights supporters outside a women’s clinic in the city.

Protesters chained themselves together outside Metropolitan Medical Associates on Engle Street and bolted the clinic’s door shut. Police, including O’Keefe, a sergeant at the time, arrested protesters by the dozens, hauling them off in buses, and one, on a flatbed truck.

“I am not looking for that to happen again,” he said recently.

Despite O’Keefe’s determination to keep his city from being drawn into the national abortion debate again, militant activists are changing what have been, in recent years, low-key, respectful protests. Longtime activists who have kept a vigil on the sidewalk outside the clinic have been joined on weekends by more aggressive protesters shouting over megaphones and confronting patients.

City officials say Englewood police officers are walking a fine line protecting protesters’ First Amendment rights, while ensuring that doctors and patients aren’t harassed and intimidated. In the mid-1990s, Englewood was at the center of the battle over free speech and patients’ rights. Protesters barred from blocking the entrance to Metropolitan Medical challenged the federal law guaranteeing access to abortion clinics. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear it, allowing the law to stand.

‘Push and pull’

Protesters have the right to voice their opinions, but under federal lawcan’t block the entrance or obstruct access to the clinic.

“That’s the constant push and pull that happens every single Saturday,” O’Keefe said.

Officers have shut down amplified recordings of babies crying, and, O’Keefe said, a protester has handed out chocolate to women entering the clinic. Anyone eating the chocolate would have to cancel their appointment because patients are required to fast before undergoing a surgical procedure under anesthesia.

“Some of the things that they say are certainly more inflammatory and accusatory than what the normal protesters engage in,” he said. “This [Saturday] group is looking, apparently, to incite people, to create a problem.”