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9 counter-protesters arrested at anti-abortion Men’s March in Boston
Hundreds of pro-abortion rights counter-protesters intercepted the Men's March in Kenmore Square, where police forced the crowd to clear a path for anti-abortion rights marchers.
Nine counter-protesters were arrested near Kenmore Square Saturday after they intercepted a men’s anti-abortion demonstration that was marching from Boston’s only Planned Parenthood clinic to the Boston Common.
The National Men’s March to Abolish Abortion and Rally for Personhood began their permitted demonstration outside Planned Parenthood on Commonwealth Avenue at 11 a.m. Saturday. The group then marched more than three miles to the Parkman Bandstand in the Boston Common for a rally.
At Kenmore Square, Boston police reported that several hundred counter-protesters were blocking the men’s path, some dressed as clowns.
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“Upon the convergence, each group was screaming/shouting at each other,” according to a police report. The counterprotesters turned “their rage at officers by threatening them, screaming fighting words, and attempting to agitate them.”
The group was ordered to move out of the path of the anti-abortion marchers but refused. Boston police then attempted to physically move the crowd, the report said. In social media posts from reporters, police can be seen in riot gear with batons, pushing back against protesters.
Officers arrested nine people who “refused to peacefully disperse, they were extremely riotous and tumultuously assembled, and their behavior created such hazardous and offensive conditions for citizens, the peacefully assembled, and the police officers alike,” police said.
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They were each charged with disorderly conduct and disturbing public assembly and will appear in local courts Monday.
Men’s March protests ‘propaganda of evil’ while Mass. protects abortion
The Men’s March made it to the Common where Jim Havens, a co-founder of march, made a religious speech at the Bandstand. The marchers had signs reading “babies killed here” and “personhood now.”
“This is actually one of the reasons we do this public march and rally, so we can help those who are indoctrinated by the propaganda of evil,” Havens said. “We can help them to come out of their ideological bubble and have an experience of real people who stand on the side of what is truly good and beautiful and stand against the ongoing, daily mass murder of our littlest brothers and sisters.”
When President-elect Donald Trump was running against Vice President Kamala Harris, he said he would not endorse a federal ban on abortion and would leave it up to states. But, with Republicans in control of Congress, abortion rights advocates are concerned about new limits on abortion. Governor Maura Healey said the state will keep its stockpile of abortion pills.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said at a separate event Saturday that the city is preparing for any federal changes to abortion rights.
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“We have safe provisions and protections that are in place no matter what the federal law or changes might be,” Wu said, according to The Boston Globe.
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