Judge Rules Human Life Begins At Conception -- Abortion Protester's Conviction Reversed

WICHITA, Kan. - A judge's ruling that an abortion protester was protecting life by blockading a women's clinic could encourage anti-abortion activists to be even more aggressive, a lawyer said.

Sedgwick County District Judge Paul W. Clark yesterday reversed the criminal trespassing conviction of Elizabeth Ann Tilson, agreeing with her that life begins at conception.

Tilson used a "justification defense" - that she violated a lesser law in order to prevent a greater crime.

The judge said the ruling applied only to Tilson and not to the hundreds of other abortion foes arrested in Wichita demonstrations last summer.

"The scientific community is of the opinion that life in homo sapiens begins at conception, and harm is the result of termination of life under most circumstances," Clark wrote.

John Cowles, who has represented one of Wichita's three abortion clinics in other cases, urged the city attorney's office to appeal.

"If it was the law of the land, it would give the green light for renegade organizations like Operation Rescue to create mayhem with the government having no power to stop them," Cowles said.

"It is completely wrong," Cowles said. "It is an enormous departure from precedent."

The District of Columbia and 23 states have rejected the defense Tilson used, Cowles said. It also has been rejected in anti-war and anti-nuclear protest cases, he said.

A spokeswoman for the city prosecutor's office said no decision had been made about whether to appeal.

Tilson, 33, a Wichita housewife, was arrested Aug. 3 at Wichita Family Planning Inc., a women's clinic that was blocked by protesters.

She was convicted of criminal trespassing, fined $1,000 and ordered to serve six months in jail. She remained free on appeal.

The judge rejected Assistant City Attorney Sharon Chalker's argument that abortion cannot be a harm Tilson was seeking to prevent because it is a legal procedure. "That is too broad an application," Clark wrote.

Chalker said the ruling would not affect city or police policies toward abortion protesters.

Clark was attending a judicial conference in Durango, Colo., and did not return telephone calls to his hotel.

Steve Graber, one of Tilson's lawyers, said the ruling might spur other judges to look at the question of when life begins.

"It was a courageous thing for Judge Clark to do to even entertain the evidence," Graber said.

During 46 days of demonstrations at three Wichita clinics there were more than 2,700 arrests of about 1,700 people.

The national anti-abortion group Operation Rescue sponsored the so-called "Summer of Mercy" rallies and clinic blockades.

"It's not every day that a judge rules according to biblical guidelines, and it's always encouraging to hear from a judge who hasn't sold out to the death industry," Keith Tucci, the group's national executive director, said in a statement.