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Lawmaker blasted for his actions at anti-abortion rally

PHILADELPHIA — Hundreds of anti-abortion protesters packed the street outside a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday to object to a state legislator’s recent treatment of demonstrators at the site and call for his resignation.

Two videos in which Democratic state Rep. Brian Sims badgers anti-abortion protesters have outraged activists in recent days and inspired fundraisers for their cause.

A woman who appeared with her daughters in one of the videos addressed the rally, which included protesters who said they’d never been to one before. One of those, Anita McGlynn, said she was concerned that Sims was threatening peaceful demonstrators.

“What I saw was a white man harassing teenage girls and an old woman and threatening a cornerstone of our democracy, which is peaceful protest,” said McGlynn, 51, a self-employed writer and researcher who says she is a anti-abortion Democrat. “That actually galvanized me. Our Democratic ideals are at stake.”

In one video shot last week outside the Planned Parenthood facility in his district, Sims berated an unidentified woman, asking her a stream of questions and calling her actions disgusting, racist and shameful. The woman largely ignores him, at one point taking a rosary out of her bag.

A second video that Sims posted in April has since come to light. In it, Sims peppers a woman with three teenage girls with questions. At one point, he described them as “pseudo Christians.” Sims promised to donate $100 to Planned Parenthood if someone was able to identify the protesters. Ashley Garecht told Friday’s rally that she was the woman in the video and two of the girls are her daughters and the third is their friend.

As a riposte to Sims’ promise to donate to Planned Parenthood, Garecht and her husband, Joe, launched a GoFundMe page, which has raised over $118,000 in three days for the Pro-Life Union of Greater Philadelphia.

A group called Live Action organized the “Pro-Life Rally Against Bullying” organized Friday’s rally to draw attention to Sims’ actions.

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