Dozens of police, federal marshals and abortion rights supporters outnumbered protesters at a Gulfport, Miss., clinic Monday as abortion foes began a week of protests.
Tensions are high in the wake of the murder of a Pensacola abortion doctor and his escort. Monday, Joseph Booker, who now is the only abortion doctor in Mississippi, wore a military helmet and was driven to the clinic by police.
Abortion rights supporters are worried about the Mississippi protests, scheduled in Gulfport and later in Jackson, because they are being led by abortion foes who last year signed a statement supporting "justifiable homicide" to stop abortions.
The man who circulated that petition, Paul Hill, is charged in the Pensacola slayings.
According to fliers advertising the "No Place to Hide" demonstrations, abortion foes will spend the week waging "spiritual warfare" and taking down license plate numbers of women who visit the clinics.
Protest organizer Roy McMillan said the goal is to pressure Booker to quit, making Mississippi the first state without an abortion doctor.
"Some people would call it harassment," he said. "What we call it is exposing the deeds of wickedness, and the Bible requires us to do that."
McMillan and fellow protest leader, Joseph Foreman, said protesters were required to sign a pledge of non-violence. Foreman now says he doesn't "want to be associated with (Hill's) statement."
But after the Pensacola shootings, police and clinic workers were taking no chances.
"I felt very chilled when I saw some of them walk up this morning," said Jeanne Clark of the Feminist Majority Foundation, who wore a bullet-proof vest Monday. "These folks are real bad dudes."
Meanwhile, Monday in Florida, Roman Catholic priests were warned to dress inconspicuously after a threatening anonymous call.
The FBI is investigating a call to a Miami church Thursday, warning, "Ten priests will die for every person that was killed in Pensacola."
