Abortion Foes Fail to Shut Down Clinic

In the largest of a score of confrontations throughout the nation, anti-abortionists failed Saturday to close down an Inglewood family planning clinic as pro-choice activists outfoxed them and kept the doors open for patients.

There were no arrests in the “National Day of Rescue” demonstration at the Family Planning Associates clinic of Inglewood, despite occasional shoving and shouting matches among the roughly 1,000 men and women from each side who turned out mostly to sing hymns and carry signs, one of which read: “Keep Your Nose Out of My Pantyhose.”

‘Total Victory’

At one point, as the crowd around the front door pushed and shoved, several clinic security guards wedged a small, thin, sobbing woman toward a space by the door. She gasped, wiped away a tear, entered the building and fell into the arms of a clinic worker as the crowd chanted: “Cheers! We’re With You!” Her escort also collapsed weeping to the ground.

“It’s a total victory for us,” said Kathy Spillar, national coordinator for the Feminist Majority, one of several pro-choice groups that guarded the clinic Saturday. “We completely overwhelmed them.”

Participants in the assault staged by the aggressive New York-based anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue, blamed a “partial failure” on a small Inglewood police contingent that stood by and watched as a dozen no-nonsense security guards hired by the clinic handled the job of controlling the rowdy crowd.

“We can’t successfully do a nonviolent rescue when the police won’t stop abuse at the door,” said Luthor Nelson, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Norwalk.

“They’re goons, professional bouncers,” said another Operation Rescue member.

Beyond that, Operation Rescue members for the first time engaged in battle without their national leadership present.

“It’s their first rescue on their own, and considering that, they are doing great,” said Lawrence Schrank, an Operation Rescue organizer from Northern California. “The turnout was huge; conservatively, 1,200 were risking arrest.”

Some others, however, all but conceded defeat.

‘We’re Learning’

“The goal was to fully shut down the place,” said a glum-looking Ken Cobb of Chino, who was in charge of an Operation Rescue video unit. “However, we’re learning and we are growing, and we are going to make these people accountable for their actions.”

Saturday’s demonstration was a replay of an Operation Rescue campaign last month in which more than 700 abortion foes were arrested at several Southern California clinics. The increasingly bitter clashes come as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a crucial Missouri case that could reverse or dilute the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortions.

Organizers originally hoped to elude their opponents by keeping the name of their intended target a secret until the last minute. But Spillar said pro-choice supporters with communications equipment had infiltrated Operation Rescue’s two caravans even before they left staging areas in Pasadena and the city of Orange at daybreak.

Spillar said additional anti-Operation Rescue strategies included mass mobilization using a network of cellular phones, a central communications headquarters and weeks of researching potential targets.

They also used what they called the “lasagna strategy.” The technique involved surrounding anti-abortion demonstrators with layers of pro-choice advocates.

“It demoralizes them and cuts them off from communication,” said Robin Schneider, an executive director of the California Abortion Rights Action League.

“We kept the clinic open all morning, mainly because we outmaneuvered and outsmarted them,” Spillar said. “The police didn’t even have to make an arrest.”

Some Operation Rescue members insisted that no abortions took place and that the women seen escorted inside the tan stucco building were actually “phony patients.”

According to a clinic official who asked not to be named, abortions were performed Saturday. But not all women showed up for their appointments, probably because they were scared away by the crowds.

The clinic, one in a statewide chain owned by Dr. Edward Allred, performs abortions only in the first trimester of pregnancy, the official said.

The Inglewood demonstration began shortly after daybreak with the arrival of dozens of anti-abortionists who sat en masse in front of the clinic’s six doorways. But pro-choice activists, assisted by the clinic’s own beefy security guards, managed to keep one of the entrances open.

“Feels like freedom to be on the front lines!” yelled Constance Norman after she and dozens of other pro-choice advocates squelched an attempt by Operation Rescue members to plug up the entrance with their bodies. “Right-wing bigots go home!”

By 9 a.m., as throngs from both sides encircled the one-story clinic, security guard Daren Domek said he had escorted at least 10 women through the clinic’s front door.

A contingent of three dozen police had made no arrests by 4:30 p.m., when most of the demonstrators began to disperse, Lt. John Frazier said.

Anti-abortionists in groups of 60 to 500 also staged coordinated clinic blockades in at least 19 other cities, including New York, Washington, Atlanta, New Orleans, San Antonio, Detroit, Seattle and suburban New Jersey, where several hundred arrests were made.

Authorities and Operation Rescue officials reported at least 150 arrests in Shrewsbury, N.J.; 124 in Boulder, Colo.; 123 in Livonia, Mich.; about 120 in Brookline, Mass.; 84 in Sterling Heights, Mich.; 72 in Las Vegas, Nev., and 22 in Lansing, Mich.

Operation Rescue forces staging an early morning rally outside two women’s health clinics in Philadelphia, however, left without incident when police warned them that they were in violation of a federal court order that bans blocking access to clinics.