PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Hundreds of anti-abortion protestors demonstrated in front of Planned Parenthood’s offices on Point Street Saturday morning.
Providence police blocked off Chestnut Street as several hundred protestors, led by Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, demonstrated outside. Private security and volunteers kept the building accessible to visitors.
“The protest is to raise awareness about Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of aborted baby parts,” Tobin wrote in a news release Friday afternoon. “Thousands of concerned citizens are expected to attend these protests all across the country.”
Many people who are against abortaion came out Saturday to show their support.
“There is nothing about Planned Parenthood that involves parenthood at all. It involves prevention and death,” said Kathleen Kelly of Silent No More, a Christian campaign.
“All life is precious. And I don’t want to look back on my life saying that I knew this was going on and that I didn’t try to do something about it,” said Jessica Baeckel. Baeckel came to the protest with her husband and two of her four children.
Abortion opponents made national headlines recently by releasing several secretly-recorded videos in which opponents represented themselves to Planned Parenthood staff as biomedical researchers looking for tissue for medical research. The videos led to allegations that Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue for profit, a claim which Planned Parenthood has denied.
“Extremists who oppose Planned Parenthood’s mission and services are making outrageous and completely false claims in an effort to ban abortion and limit women’s access to reproductive health care at Planned Parenthood,” Planned Parenthood of Southern New England CEO Judy Tabar told Eyewitnes News on Friday. “They are engaged in a fraud intended to deceive the public, and other claims they have made have been discredited and disproven. Planned Parenthood follows all laws and has extremely high medical and professional standards.”
Several local lawmakers have also appealed to Attorney General Peter Kilmartin to investigate Planned Parenthood, but no such investigation is underway in Rhode Island, according to a spokesperson for Kilmartin.
“While the Attorney General finds the allegations of the actions that have allegedly occurred at a facility in another state extremely disturbing, there has been no evidence thus far showing that these activities occur in Rhode Island,” the spokesperson said.
Saturday’s protest was peaceful; demonstrators carried signs and prayed while Planned Parenthood staff played music over the protest.
Police eventually closed a side street so protestors could gather without spilling over into traffic.
According to Planned Parenthood, 8,000 Rhode Islanders rely on their services every year.
