AUGUSTA — Responding to escalating anti-abortion violence in other states and unrelenting protests in Maine, Gov. John R. McKernan plans to convene a State House summit this week to explore how best to protect Maine women’s access to abortion clinics.

Officials from the offices of the U.S. attorney and the state attorney general will join McKernan and representatives of abortion providers in Wednesday’s discussion.

The governor, a staunch supporter of abortion rights, said participants will be briefed on the status of federal and state laws, then discuss the situation in Maine and whether additional legislation is warranted.

“The lawyer in me says that we ought to actually have some people who know something about this look at what is necessary” before jumping to conclusions, McKernan said.

Recent protests show “there is clearly harassment going on of those who provide services that women are supposed to be constitutionally entitled to,” the governor said.

“The question is, how far has that harassment gone and are people’s constitutional rights being infringed?”

Anti-abortion groups were not invited to the summit, and their spokesmen said it is clear that the governor and abortion-rights activists are not interested in compromise.

“If you have a problem, I would hope that both sides would be asked to come in,” said Ed Gerrish of Stockton Springs, an organizer of recent protests that prompted a Falmouth doctor and a Rockport clinic to stop performing abortions.

Chris Coughlan of the Maine Right to Life Committee called it “amazing that the governor has no other pressing matters of state” than the issue of access to abortion clinics, which he said is not in jeopardy.

If protesters had broken the law, “these people would have been arrested a long time ago,” said Coughlan, whose group is not affiliated with Gerrish.

If the government narrows the boundaries for protesters much further, “it won’t leave much space for a peaceful protest,” said Gerrish, adding that he opposes violence and would stop protesting if restrictions become too harsh.

Gerrish’s small band of protesters has recently begun weekly demonstrations outside the Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Center in Bangor. A rock was thrown through a window of the clinic during last week’s protest, but the group denied involvement.

In other states, anti-abortion activists have turned much more violent.

In Pensacola, Fla., a trial begins next week for a former Presbyterian minister charged with the shotgun slayings of an abortion doctor and the doctor’s unarmed escort last July.

A trial is scheduled to begin next Monday for Hill, a former Presbyterian minister accused of the July 29 shotgun slayings outside the Ladies Center, a Pensacola abortion clinic. A judge ruled Monday that defendant Paul Hill cannot use a justifiable homicide defense.

Also Monday, the Justice Department announced that a woman imprisoned for the attempted murder of a Kansas abortion doctor also faces 30 felony counts in attacks on nine abortion clinics in California, Oregon, Idaho and Nevada in 1992 and 1993. Among other things, Rachelle Ranae “Shelley” Shannon is accused of using napalm to firebomb one clinic and injecting a vomit-smelling substance into the walls of another.

The Maine protesters may not be violent, but they “represent something that has turned very violent” elsewhere, said Katie Fullam, a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.

Having lost in court and the state legislatures, “they are turning to the streets to prevent women from obtaining safe abortion services,” she said.

George Hill, executive director of the Family Planning Association of Maine, warned that intimidation by anti-abortion groups could result in abortion doctors being “ghettoized.” Only 75 to 80 doctors are licensed to perform abortions, and only a fraction of them accept referrals, he said.

“We really have to train more providers in this state to provide this service,” he said.

At the Bangor clinic, Executive Director Ruth Lockhart said that, in addition to the rock thrown through the window, someone left “a couple unpleasant messages” on the telephone answering machine.

“I’m still not frightened,” she said. “It’s business as usual here.”

The clinic started performing abortions in February and currently does about six a month, Lockhart said. Statewide, 2,935 abortions were performed in Maine in 1992, the latest figures available, she added.

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Wessler, head of the civil rights division, said his office has been reviewing complaints about abortion protesters for about a year.

The lack of criminal charges “does not mean that there hasn’t been a violation,” he said. “It may be that (the state) can’t prove a violation.”