Activists from both sides of the abortion divide met in a noisy, sometimes heated, confrontation Saturday outside the Madison clinic that may soon provide second-trimester abortions.
About 800 anti-abortion rights activists from around Wisconsin marched to the Madison Surgery Center at 1 S. Park St. from Library Mall. State and national leaders of the anti-abortion movement speaking at Library Mall urged the marchers to hold UW Hospital officials accountable if the clinic begins to offer second-trimester abortions.
The clinic is jointly run by UW Hospital, its doctor group and Meriter Hospital. The UW Hospital and Clinics Authority Board is scheduled to meet Wednesday to give direction to hospital employees who sit on the board of the surgery center.
Approval by the surgery center board of directors also would be needed before the procedures could be performed. Planned Parenthood operates the only other abortion clinic in Madison, providing first-trimester and some early second-trimester abortions. About 60 abortion rights protesters met the much larger, and mostly silent, anti-abortion demonstrators outside the surgery center Saturday with shouted slogans.
"Whose clinic? Our clinic. Whose rights? Our rights!" the smaller group shouted as the opposing demonstration moved up Regent Street to Park Street. The leader of the anti-abortion rights march, carrying an American flag, struggled around the linked arms of the abortion rights protesters, in the most physical brush of the fray.
Police closed one block of Regent for about 40 minutes as the two groups faced off. Earlier, anti-abortion activists attended an hour-long rally that featured such lights of the anti-abortion rights movement as former abortionist Dr. Haywood Robinson of Texas.
Speakers took the stage against a backdrop of bunches of pink and blue balloons and a sign with children's blocks spelling out "Pro-Life" before folding chairs set up on the Library Mall.
"This is the human rights issue in America," said Steve Karlen, founder of Madison Vigil of Life. Dr. William Evans, a heart surgeon who practices at Meriter Hospital, said a growing group of physicians is ready to speak out against abortion, "some of whom put their signatures on letters and some who are just beginning to get the courage to come forward and say, 'No. We cannot continue this insanity.'"
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a member of the International Socialist Organization that sponsored the counter demonstration, vowed that abortion rights supporters would be organizing for more action.
"We should be expanding the provision of abortion in the state, not pulling back," she said. Lisa Subeck, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, praised the health organizations planning to provide the procedures.
"UW Hospitals and Clinics and Meriter Surgery Center have made a really brave, exciting, responsible choice to provide second-trimester abortions here in Madison," she said.
"We need to show UW Hospital and Clinics that this is a pro-choice city, a pro-choice county, a pro-choice community that appreciates the service they're about to provide."
