Protesters decry upholding of ban on abortion procedure

They fanned out in pairs to MBTA stops in South Boston and Dorchester, carrying clipboards and bright pink signs that proclaimed "Keep Abortion Legal" and "Stop the War on Choice." They slapped stickers that said "Birth Control Not Bans" onto a commuter's backpack, a little girl's tanktop, and a homeless man's jacket.

About a dozen volunteers for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts took to the streets yesterday to protest the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold a national ban on the controversial procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion.

Their goal was to get more than 300 people to sign petitions urging US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, a South Boston Democrat, to co sponsor the Freedom of Choice Act, legislation that would codify into federal law the protections of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which declared women's right to have an abortion.

Lynch voted in favor of the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, the law recently upheld by the high court.

"I value my reproductive rights, and the federal abortion ban puts politics ahead of women's health," said Katie Mae Simpson , 27, a grass-roots organizer for Planned Parenthood, as she directed volunteers at Broadway station in South Boston. "Politicians shouldn't step into something that's between women and their doctors."

A spokeswoman for Lynch said he was unreachable for a comment yesterday.

Chris Hoedt, 23, a graduate student in medical sciences and public health at Boston University, said his classes discussed the Supreme Court decision last week.

"This is completely against medical recommendations of what's safe," said Hoedt, a Planned Parenthood volunteer dressed in a blue T-shirt that read, "This is what a feminist looks like."

But Massachusetts Citizens for Life, a Boston-based anti abortion group, saw the decision as a "step in the right direction for this country," Marie Sturgis, the group's executive director, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Sturgis said Planned Parenthood's push for Lynch to support the Freedom of Choice Act "ignores the will of the American people," because Congress has passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. "They are the representatives of the people, and that's a true reflection of what people think," Sturgis said.

The Planned Parenthood volunteers said they worried the court decision puts the country on a slippery slope that could lead to the end of abortion rights. The recent Supreme Court decision was the first time the court allowed a ban on any type of abortion without a broad exception to protect a woman's health.

Eileen MacDougall, 54, who used to schedule abortions at a women's health center in Brookline, said she worries that her 19-year-old daughter and other younger women take abortion for granted.

"I don't think they really get it because they're used to having that right," said MacDougall, whose friend and former colleague, Lee Ann Nichols, was killed by a gunman who attacked a Brookline clinic in 1994. "Maybe now some younger women and men will wake up and say, 'Uh oh, this is not a good thing,' " she said, referring to the recent Supreme Court decision.