Denver, Colorado - Denver police arrested 13 anti-abortion protesters Tuesday during a sit-down protest near the Pepsi Centre where Democrats are meeting to nominate Senator Barack Obama as their presidential candidate, according to a report in the Denver Post.

"A vote for Obama and Biden is a vote to sustain legalized child killing," one of the protestors, Randall Terry, was quoted as shouting. "The police are enforcing the laws of obstructing traffic yet they won't enforce the laws against the killing of children."

Terry, national director of Operation Rescue in Washington, DC, led the protests by about 30 people in the street near an entrance to the Pepsi Centre grounds of the Democratic convention. Randall was among those arrested, the Post reported.

On Monday, Democrats adopted a party platform that includes support for a woman's right to choose an abortion - a right that hangs on the makeup of the US Supreme Court.

As president, Senator John McCain, an opponent of legalized abortion and the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, would have the power to appoint new judges as court vacancies occurred, and would be likely to choose a pro-life judge.

In the protest, Terry led the demonstrators to a highly secured baricade outside the Pepsi Centre, where they sat down when police denied them entrance. After asking them three times to move, police arrested them. (dpa)