Susan Collins called the police to report 'defacement of public property' after someone wrote an abortion-rights message in chalk on a public sidewalk outside her house

• Collins called the police over an abortion-rights message on the sidewalk in front of her house.
• "Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —> vote yes, clean up your mess," the message said.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of just two nominally pro-choice Republicans in the Senate, called the police on Saturday night over an abortion-rights message written in chalk in front of her house in Bangor.

According to the Bangor Daily News, officers responded to a call at 9:20 p.m. on Saturday after the message appeared on a public sidewalk on West Broadway. It read: "Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —> vote yes, clean up your mess."

"WHPA" is a reference to the Women's Health Protection Act, a bill that would codify the right to an abortion, afforded by Roe v. Wade, into federal law. Senate Democrats teed up a Wednesday vote on the bill, which was passed by the House in September, in the wake of a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe.

"The message was not overtly threatening," Wade Betters, a spokesperson for the Bangor Police Department, told the Bangor Daily News, which also reported that the message was no longer visible by Monday afternoon.

"We are grateful to the Bangor police officers and the city public works employee who responded to the defacement of public property in front of our home," the senator told the Bangor Daily News.

"Because Senator Collins periodically gets threatening letters and phone calls, we have been advised by Capitol Police to notify the local police department when there is activity directed at her around her home," her office said in a statement to Insider.

Collins, who describes herself as a proponent of abortion rights, opposes the Women's Health Protection Act, saying the bill goes too far because medical providers who object to abortion for moral or religious reasons wouldn't be allowed to refuse to perform the procedure. She's said she'll vote no on the legislation, which is expected to fail in the Senate without the support of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who's also stated his opposition to it.

Collins voted to confirm Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch, three of the five conservative justices who Politico reported voted in favor of the draft opinion, which would overturn decades of precedent on abortion rights.

"I could not vote for a judge who had demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade because it would indicate a lack of respect for precedent," she told CBS in 2018, adding that Kavanaugh told her he "views precedent not just as a legal doctrine but as rooted in our Constitution."

Collins criticized Gorsuch and Kavanaugh's support for revoking the right to an abortion following the publication of the draft opinion by Politico last week.

"If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office," Collins said in a statement.

Collins and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who also opposes overturning Roe, have put forward a more moderate bill, called the Reproductive Choice Act, but pro-choice groups and Democrats have panned the legislation.