Wiping my eyes as I type
I arrived at their mustering point, a protestant church somewhere in the area, and went in. There the atmosphere was quiet and peaceful -- and yet a little like they were putting on armor, steeling themselves up. No particular service as such (I belong to a liturgical church), but some prayers but no harangue and elevated voices. After some time someone declared it was time to go, and we headed out for the parking lot.
Clearly the other side knew about this, because they were lined up all along the periphery of the church property. (I do not recall clearly whether police were present, but I think they were.)
What a contrast to the church interior! A more motley "counter-cultural" (to put it politely) crowd I'd never before seen, issuing jeers, shrieks and curses that sounded like they were coming straight out of Hell itself. One apparent "witch" had woven a yarn cobweb across the gate and was making some kind of hand motions over it.
The gates were soon opened, the cobweb broken, and we drove off towards the "clinic."
There the pro-lifers formed a wall around the main entrance, and blocked the other entrances with their bodies. (I know, you can't do this anymore.)
Some of the "pro-choicers" showed up and harangued the crowd; one had a videocamera and was apparently trying to intimidate by taping faces and license plates. (For me she got both, though I was busily scribbling in a notepad.)
But the crowd remained peaceful; it looked like they'd been well trained against confrontation.
Then the police showed up, and ordered the crowd to disperse. When they didn't, the arrests began. I recall them manhandling one of the firsts, an older gentleman at least in his 80s, into the paddy wagon -- and not at all gently. Quite a few more followed, each cheered by the crowd, many of whom would follow in their own turn.
I don't remember much of events after that, but the one thing that sticks in my memory is the shock of emerging from the peaceful environment where the pro-life folks prepared themselves into the ground that the pro-choicers had laid.
Up until that incident I had been at best nominally pro-life, though surrounded by pro-life friends (and wife *\;-). Little did I know that within a year or so of this event that I was going to have to deal with the issue of aborting a "difficult pregnancy" directly in my own family... but now... she's going to be an engineer, just like her older sister and father! (Papa is proud, can you tell?*)
(*LoM, sorry about the lack of language majors, you know we love you regardless!)