Leaders of this week's "Siege of Atlanta" begged for more people to attend Friday's demonstrations during the final day of anti-abortion protests after a dramatic drop in attendance.
The pleas apparently paid off, because about 50 people were arrested Friday in two waves of protests at the Midtown Hospital.The Rev. Joseph Foreman, regional director of the New York-based anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, told about 40 people at a rally Thursday night to gather early Friday for a private strategy session.
"We've gotten predictable," Foreman said earlier at a rally at St. Jude the Apostle Roman Catholic Church.
Atlanta police first arrested 33 demonstrators early Friday for blocking clinic entrances, as some patients had to be taken over police barricades to get inside, according to witnesses. Later, about 20 more demonstrators were taken into custody.
Police did not show the force Friday that they have used this week, instead asking the protesters to walk to police buses "like gentlemen and ladies." When the demonstrators refused, they were carried - but not dragged - away from the clinic.