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In Protest Outside Middle School, Anti-Abortion Activists Target Daughter Of Abortion Clinic’s Landlord

Anti-abortion activists who have been trying to shut down an abortion clinic in Maryland took on a new and unusual target at a protest this week: the sixth grade daughter of the man who simply owns the office park where the clinic is located. On Monday, the first day of school, protesters stood at the entrance of Robert Frost Middle School with graphic posters of aborted fetuses.

Some also held banners with the landlord’s picture, his full name, his phone number and the words “Please STOP the Child Killing.” The landlord was understandably furious, as his daughter shares his last name and could be connected with him through the posters:

Antiabortion activists who have sought for months to shut down a Germantown clinic picketed its landlord outside a Montgomery County middle school where his daughter is a student, school and police officials said Monday.

A small group of protesters stood outside Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville on Thursday, holding signs and a banner, during back-to-school night, officials said.

The student’s father, who did not want to be named to protect the safety of his daughter, a sixth-grader at the school, said he saw the five protesters when he went to the school event.

The man owns the property where Dr. LeRoy Carhart is one of the few doctors in the country openly performing late-term abortions. He has been working in Maryland since Nebraska banned abortions after 20 weeks. Anti-abortion protesters have been demonstrating at the clinic since December.

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On Monday, school security officials and local police worked together to try to keep protesters away from students. Nevertheless, two protesters holding antiabortion posters stood for about an hour at the school’s entrance. The landlord said he had to explain the situation to his daughter and son, who is a freshman at a nearby high school. He has also been under assault from another anti-abortion group that launched a campaign last week trying to pressure him to cancel the clinic’s lease.

“It’s horribly outrageous that they’re going out in front of a middle school,” he said. “It is way crossing the line. I very much respect the right of the protesters to do so in front of the clinic, or the steps of Capitol Hill, or the courthouse. But in front of a middle school is really not an appropriate place…”

Montgomery County schools spokeswoman Lesli Maxwell added, “The idea that a group of protesters would target a school because the child of someone they are targeting attends the school . . . is fairly despicable.”

Unfortunately, targeting people only tangentially related to abortion clinics has become a new favorite tactic of activists determined to shut down operations. In California, anti-abortion protesters recently forced a Planned Parenthood clinic to move by bullying Enterprise-Rent-A-Car into reneging on its contract to provide the center with the parking spots it needs to satisfy local zoning regulations.