The Helpers of God’s Precious Infants have been staging a prayer vigil every Thursday and using a video camera in a parked car to film people coming and going at the Englehardt Street clinic.

But yesterday the camera was nowhere to be seen, as they were outnumbered by about 50 residents who exchanged a war of words with the anti-­abortionists.

School student Alex Cameron, 17, was one of the organisers of the protest opposing the Christian group’s presence at the clinic.

He said the event was so successful they would come back next Thursday.

“We have to make sure the camera is not here every week,” he said,

“We need to get to work on some sort of strategy to them to take their protest somewhere else.”

While the gathering was organised using a Face­book group, most of the residents who came out to support its message were men and women over 60.

Many remembered “the bad old days” when women died while undergoing amateur abortions.

Protester Rex Beard, a retiree, said his passion about women’s right to choose a termination was drawn from personal ­experience.

“For a woman to make this decision is a very hard choice.

“My wife and I had three children in Queensland and then number four came along.

“It was a gut-wrenching decision (to abort a child). It was for the survival of our family unit.”

But member’s of The God’s Precious Infants yesterday were adamant there are no circumstances where abortion is right.

Phil Murphy argued in front of the clinic with the protesters, asking them if they had a solution to “girls that come here and are coerced into getting an abortion”.

Other self-proclaimed “sidewalk counsellors” handed out brochures to the women entering the clinic warning them of the dangers of abortion.

At the end of the afternoon, the clinic’s doctor, Kathy Lewis, mingled with the protest group and thanked them for their support.