Last modified: Saturday, October 27, 2007 12:21 AM EDT bortion protesters walk near the road at Four Women Clinic in Attleboro. (Staff photo by MIKE GEORGE) Abortion protests facing new limits BY LATOYA M. SMITH FOR THE SUN CHRONICLE ATTLEBORO - Outside the Four Women Clinic, two pro-life advocates clutched rosary beads, tied a poster board with an image of "the patroness of the unborn" over their knee-length winter coats, and began to pray as they paced the small, round patch of dirt at the parking lot entrance of the health center. "We're exercising our constitutional right, our freedom of expression and speech and religion," said Marilyn L., who didn't want to use her full name. "We don't yell. It's a peaceful picket." Soon, restrictions on those protests may change. Abortion rights advocates say the change is needed for safety; anti-abortionists question whether the change will affect their First Amendment rights. The clinic, tucked in the back of a larger medical office complex, provides surgical abortions for women from 5.5 to 20 weeks into their pregnancies, annual exams and pap smears, birth control options, sexually-transmitted disease testing, and other general gynecological care. But Marilyn L. said protestors only demonstrate on abortion days - Thursdays and Saturdays. "They usually have the abortionist car and usually have a guard there, that's how we know," she said. "When they are not doing the abortions, it's usually closed and no lights are on." Marilyn L., a member of the Massachusetts Citizens for Life, is only joined by one other protestor on this day. Typically four or more people protest on Thursdays. A larger group dots the clinic on Saturdays. Both groups protest all year long. As the cold wind lifts Marilyn's short brown hair and pinches at her pallid skin, she continues to walk and prays the 15 decades of the rosary. She begins "Our Father, who art in heaven," and then passes the next prayer to her partner. "Hail Mary, full of grace," the other protester, who did not give her name, said as she looked at the ground through her tinted oval glass frames. She continued with "our daily bread," following behind Marilyn L. "We're praying for the conversion of hearts and minds and for the souls of the babies lives that are being taken," Marilyn L. said. Acts of violence or confrontation are rare at the Attleboro abortion clinic. But a 2006 report by NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, which surveyed 10 abortion clinics in the state, said patients at the Four Women clinic reported feeling too intimidated by the protestors pacing the driveway entrance, and turned back. "Both men and women should have the right to access a medical facility without being terrified and going through a wall of harassment and degradation," said state Sen. Susan Fargo, D-Concord, at a press conference on Beacon Hill earlier this week after the Senate unanimously passed a bill to expand the buffer zone around clinics that perform abortions. If accepted in the House, the bill will establish a fixed 35-foot buffer zone surrounding the entrances and driveways of all of the reproductive health facilities in the state. This will give Massachusetts the most stringent buffer zone law in the nation. The existing law mandates an 18-foot buffer zone but protesters can be within that zone as long as they are not within six-feet of an entering patient or staff person. This "floating zone" has made the bill difficult to enforce. State Sen. Harriette Chandler, D-Worcester, said the floating zone was a compromise to a bill passed in 2000. The Senate wanted a 25-foot fixed buffer zone, but former House Speaker Tom Finneran, who opposed abortion, found middle ground by approving the 6-foot "bubble zone" in the 18-foot buffer zone. "This was the only thing we could get," Chandler said. "I guess the feeling was something is better than nothing. Well sometimes something doesn't work out and seven years later we're acknowledging that it didn't work out." State Sen. James Timilty, D-Walpole, is hopeful that the proposed legislation will help patients feel more secure. "There has never been successful prosecution under the 2000 law," said Timilty, who represents part of Attleboro and towns to the north. "We believe that this is going to lead to a safer commonwealth ... and give a lot of people unfettered access to reproductive facilities." The issue of safety has driven the buffer zone debate since 1994 when John C. Salvi III killed two abortion clinic workers in Brookline. Salvi was convicted and died in prison. At Four Women, the buffer zone would push protestors across the street. Currently, protestors walk back and forth across the entrance of the driveway, which the NARAL survey said is about 100-feet long. Molly Finneseth, a nurse and administrator at Four Women, said that she has not seen any acts of violence at the clinic, but protestors usually hold signs of aborted fetuses and other anti-abortion messages. "They have a right to say what they want to say and peacefully assemble, as long as they do not impede on the patients' freedom of choice." But Marilyn L. said that the buffer zone is an infringement on her First Amendment right. But Fargo pointed out that if political campaigners are required to stand 150-feet from voting polls, protecting patients from harassment and intimidation should be no different. "Each town has a mark where they can stand and we happily comply with that because we know that there will be enforcement," she said. Before pulling off in her champagne-colored Cadillac with a Pro-Woman, Pro-Child, Pro-life sticker on her back window, Marilyn L. said that she will continue to try to get "savers" - people who change their mind about terminating their pregnancy. She feels that if young women were fully counseled about the risk of abortions and educated on the procedure, more would consider alternative options such as adoption or keeping the child. "You wouldn't even bring a dog to a vet without talking to the veterinarian, without knowing the procedures and the anticipated results, but a girl goes in there and doesn't really know what's going on because she might already been anesthetized and then the doctor walks in with the mask," she said. "It's a really frightening thing."