Nebraska protests to focus on doctor who performed 60,000 abortions

"I feel safer on an airplane than I do in my clinic," Carhart said, sitting at his desk in his windowless office in Bellevue, Nebraska.

"You try to think about every way an attack could happen. You try to do all you can to prevent it, but obviously Dr. [George] Tiller thought he was safe in church."

It's been nearly three months since Tiller, one of the world's most well-known doctors performing abortions, was shot in the head at point-blank range on May 31 as services began at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas.

Anti-abortion groups, led by Operation Rescue, plan to launch protests outside Carhart's clinic this weekend in Bellevue, just south of Omaha. They will be the first major anti-abortion protests since the Tiller killing.

The demonstrations are set to culminate Saturday with so-called Truth Trucks -- delivery trucks with giant rolling billboards of dismembered fetuses on the sides -- parking outside Carhart's clinic and canvassing area neighborhoods. Protesters carrying anti-abortion signs also are expected.

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman has vowed a peaceful demonstration and said that any hints of possible violence are ginned up by what he calls left-wing groups and the liberal media.