OMAHA, Nebraska, October 14, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Saturday, October 11, 2008, Mary Adam, 72, was knocked to the ground and injured outside a Bellevue, Nebraska abortion clinic by the angry mother of a woman who Mary had turned away from the clinic the previous day. The woman had returned with her daughter to ensure that she received an abortion, even though the daughter expressed hesitancy to Mary on Friday and indicated to her an interest in placing her baby for adoption.

Mary was rushed to a nearby hospital and was treated for a bump on the head and other minor injuries.

The incident began on Friday, when two sisters arrived at the abortuary owned by partial-birth abortionist LeRoy Carhart. Outside the abortuary they were given pro-life literature, and Mary spoke to them about the abortion and some of the problems that Carhart has had, including his involvement in the third-trimester abortion death of 19-year old Christin Gilbert in 2005, at George Tiller’s late-term abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas.

The two girls questioned a clinic worker about the Gilbert death before they were hustled into the clinic. The girls later left the clinic without having aborted the baby.

Police were summoned by the abortion clinic staff, who told the police that Mary and another pro-lifer, Larry Donlan, were “screaming” at the girls. Donlan had videotaped the encounter and told the officers that the accusations were absurd, and the video would prove it. The police then threatened Mary and Donlan with arrest.

Mr. Donlan, head of Rescue the Heartland, and a Truth Truck driver for Operation Rescue, related:

“Apparently after we had gone [on Friday], the girls left the mill only to return the next morning, this time with their mother who was furious that her daughter didn’t have the abortion. She hurled threats and curses at the pro-lifers as they got out of the car. Mary was at the top of the stairs as usual, but because of the high fence, she couldn’t see who it was that was coming. As the three women walked up the stairs from the parking lot, she said, ‘This is the worst thing you will do in your whole life. Your baby’s heart is beating right now.'”

Donlan said that, upon hearing this, the mother began to curse and shoved Mary, knocking her down into the street. Mary fell backwards hitting her head on the concrete. The woman then went inside the mill leaving Mary lying in the street.

Pro- lifers who witnessed the attack helped pull her to the side of the road so as to be out of the way of traffic and called 911. A rescue squad and police arrived at the scene and Mary was taken to the hospital.

After almost two hours of investigation the woman was ticketed with a class-three misdemeanor assault, but was not arrested.

Donlan said that, in his view, the charge was not severe enough. “This is a serious offence. There can be no question that if any of us had done something similar, we would surely have been arrested and jailed,” he said.

Mary is the mother of 11, grandmother of 21, and great grandmother of 3. She regularly offers help to abortion bound women in Bellevue. The name of her attacker has not been released.

“We are concerned that this was a coerced abortion,” said Troy Newman of Operation Rescue about the incident. “If the woman who attacked Mary would so easily resort to violence against a frail woman in full view of numerous witnesses, we can only wonder what she has done to her daughter in private.”

“But with the obvious police corruption in Bellevue, there is nowhere to turn to get help for that poor girl,” he continued. “The Bellevue Police Department needs a wake-up call to the reality of what is happening in their community. It is not the pro-lifers who are the problem there, but the abortion mill staff who are making false statements to the police and apparently covering for coerced abortions and God knows what else.”