Students Gird for Abortion Battle

More than 150 Harvard students are prepared to travel to Boston today if the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue stages a blockade of an abortion clinic.

Approximately 100 students will travel to one of the group's potential targets today to protect the clinic and its patients, said Jessica S. Yellin '93, co-president of Harvard Students for Choice. The delegation is working with the National Organization of Women(NOW), Yellin said.

In addition, another 75 students plan to actively participate in the Operation Rescue demonstration if it occurs, said Robert K. Wasinger'94, treasurer of the Association Against Learning in the Absence of Religion and Morality (AALARM).

Operation Rescue gained notoriety this summer after a mass blockade of an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas, resulted in hundreds of arrests. The group is expected to stage a similar blockade at an unannounced clinic sometime today.

Wasinger said the anti-abortion students are prepared to do anything they can to support Operation Rescue and will generally have "no problem with getting arrested."

To launch demonstrations on abortion clinics, Operation Rescue members generally meet at a church, pray for an hour and then take the T to a clinic, Yellin said. But Wasinger said procedures vary from time to time.

Yellin said NOW will plant representatives in the Operation Rescue meeting and follow them on the T to find out which clinic will be targeted.

Pro-choice groups will be stationed at four clinics in Boston and will be ready to regroup at any particular clinic, Yellin said.

Harvard students will be posted at the Gynecare clinic on Tremont Street and have been taught how to escort patients and defend themselves from the demonstrators, Yellin said.

"The Operation Rescue people have been known to become very violent," said Students for Choice Co-President Julie D. Bornstein '92.

Bornstein said the NOW team has three objectives: to provide support for the women at the clinic, to show political solidarity and to demonstrate resistance to Operation Rescue members.

Asked about Operation Rescue's goals, Wasinger replied, "If we save one life, we are successful.