Mahony Joins ‘Prayer Vigil’ to Protest Legal Abortion

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony on Saturday took part in a statewide “prayer vigil” aimed at stopping legalized abortion, praising anti-abortion activists for their efforts in Los Angeles and pleading with them to continue to expose what he called “the power of evil, of Satan, of darkness.”

In a mostly upbeat address to about 300 people at Pasadena’s First Nazarene Church, Mahony drew an analogy between the battle over abortion and a televised effort to save a beached whale in Australia on Saturday. Before being rescued, the whale attracted more than 5,000 concerned people to the beach where it nearly died, Mahony said.

“I just wish 5,000 committed, interested people would gather every time there was a threat of one abortion taking place,” Mahony told the multidenominational crowd, which greeted his arrival at the two-hour rally with a standing ovation.

About two dozen abortion rights activists protested outside the church, hoisting signs reading “Keep Abortion Legal” and passing out leaflets attacking Mahony’s stand against contraception in light of the worldwide AIDS epidemic. At one point, protesters blocked the exit to the church and pounded on a car roof, screaming slogans.

For the most part, however, demonstrations in Los Angeles were peaceful Saturday, in contrast to events in Wichita, Kan., where about 125 anti-abortion activists were arrested.

Protests against abortion were being scheduled this week at more than 100 clinics statewide, but organizers were urging participants to remain on sidewalks and to avoid interfering with women entering the clinics to prevent the mass arrests that have marred earlier protests.

In Inglewood, about 40 anti-abortion activists held a peaceful prayer vigil outside a women’s clinic on East 99th Street, trying to dissuade women planning abortions from going through with the procedure. The protesters there represented more than 10,000 people who will take part in the weeklong vigils, said Sue Finn, spokeswoman for the newly formed California Coalition for Life.

“There are about 50 women that go there every Saturday to have their children killed,” she said, referring to the Inglewood clinic. “We’re there to offer help so they don’t feel they have to have an abortion.”

Meanwhile, Katherine Spillar, national coordinator for an abortion rights group known as the Feminist Majority Foundation, said that about 100 “escorts” had been deployed at half a dozen clinics in Los Angeles and Orange counties to ensure that pregnant women could enter the clinics without being harassed.

“We’ll keep these clinics open,” she said. “The havoc we have witnessed in Wichita cannot and will not ever happen here in Los Angeles as long as clinic defenders remain vigilant.”