Rabid-proof fence

Even though all-American poet Robert Frost assured us in his famous poem “Mending Wall” that good fences are supposed to make good neighbors, a fence around the Planned Parenthood’s B Street Clinic doesn’t seem to have made the neighbors any happier.

Of course, the “neighbors” are there to protest against Planned Parenthood for providing abortions in addition to their other reproductive-health services.

Right smack in the middle of 40 Days for Life, a nationwide push for 24-hour prayer vigils in front of selected reproductive clinics that perform abortions, Planned Parenthood erected a wooden fence along their property line. But who does the fence help?

Wynette Sills, a local activist opposed to it, pointed out that the fence will make it more difficult for clinic escorts to see potential clients approaching on foot, and thus give Sills and her fellow “sidewalk counselors” a chance to talk to them before the clinic’s volunteers can shield them. “How will the escorts see people walking up the sidewalk,” Sills wrote, “if they are stuck behind the fortress’ wall?” Meanwhile, we’ll just have to trust Robert Frost and hope for good neighbors.