Pro-Choice Rally Draws 500,000 : Abortion: Protesters in nation’s capital shift their focus from the Supreme Court to candidates for election in November.

WASHINGTON —  An estimated 500,000 abortion-rights demonstrators, marching past monuments and cherry blossoms, shifted their focus Sunday from the Supreme Court to presidential, congressional and statehouse elections in November.

Although the high court will hear arguments April 22 on a Pennsylvania case that could limit the justices’ 1973 ruling creating a constitutional right to abortion, the demonstrators’ signs, speeches, slogans and statements were aimed mostly at political candidates.

This reflected widespread resignation among them that the Supreme Court, a prime target in past demonstrations, will overturn or continue to dilute its Roe vs. Wade abortion decision in the future. Thus, the abortion-rights’ advocates targeted lawmakers and government executives Sunday, hoping to preserve legal abortion in legislation and administrative regulations.

“We’re going to turn out of office people who don’t support us,” Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, declared as throngs of marchers headed down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to a rally on the Washington Mall near Capitol Hill.

Similarly, Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, told the rally: “President Bush is the most anti-choice, anti-women candidate in American history, and he has to go.”

A popular sign wielded by demonstrators--”Pass the Freedom of Choice Act Now”--urged passage of a bill in Congress that would legislate into law the rights declared by the court in its Roe vs. Wade ruling nearly 20 years ago.

“We Will Decide Nov. 3 with Women’s Lives at Stake,” proclaimed another placard held aloft in the bright sunshine and chilly winds.

While District of Columbia and U.S. Park Police officials estimated the crowd at 500,000, Ireland contended that it was “more than a million.”

Using the police estimate, the crowd exceeded the 300,000 who marched for abortion rights here three years ago--the largest demonstration since a 1983 civil rights rally marking the 20th anniversary of the March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech.

Democratic presidential contenders Bill Clinton and Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. broke away from campaigning for votes in New York’s primary election Tuesday to take part in Sunday’s demonstration.

Brown, the former California governor, sat through about an hour of speeches and music and then addressed a small crowd behind the main stage, standing on a folding chair and speaking with a bullhorn.

Arkansas Gov. Clinton joined the marchers, surrounded by about 150 supporters and a sea of campaign signs. As the group passed the White House, they chanted: “Pro-Clinton, pro-choice.”

Also in attendance was former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, who last month suspended his campaign for the Democratic nomination but indicated Sunday that he may resume it Wednesday.

A NOW spokeswoman said the organization had decided not to let any presidential candidate speak at the rally.

Bush, who spoke by amplified telephone hookup to 70,000 anti-abortion demonstrators here last Jan. 22, was at the Camp David presidential retreat Sunday and is scheduled to return to the White House today before helping the Baltimore Orioles open the baseball season in a new stadium.

In Los Angeles, at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple just west of downtown, about 100 people gathered for an interfaith service to show local support for the Washington march. Organizers said the service, sponsored by numerous religious and community groups, was intended to remind particularly younger Angelenos what it was like to be female when abortion was illegal.

On one wall, six women posted written accounts of their experiences. One wrote that her visit to a back-alley abortionist made her unable to bear children. Another wrote that she survived her self-inflicted abortion only after a friend rushed her to the hospital.

“Now, 35 years later, the coat-hanger days will soon be back. Why?” she wrote.

To memorialize individual victims, volunteers distributed stickers to the audience, each emblazoned with the name of a woman and the date that she died.

“Illegal abortion kills women,” said Catherine Even, 40, of Manhattan Beach. “I’m terrified that we may lose the rights that we’ve all taken for granted for 19 years.”

During the rally in the nation’s capital, anti-abortion forces staged small counterdemonstrations. In the shadow of the Washington Monument, they set up cardboard tombstones and white crosses commemorating the women and fetuses they contend have been lost to legal abortion.

Also, fewer than 200 abortion opponents gathered on the west lawn of the Capitol, separated from the abortion-rights rally by a reflecting pool and a mounted statue of Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

Their chants of “pro-life” and “not NOW, not ever” were drowned out by actress Jane Fonda and District of Columbia Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, who spoke over a highly amplified speaker system to abortion-rights demonstrators filling the blocks-long mall.

Fonda, part of a contingent from the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee, told politicians and justices: “You’ve got enough problems of your own--stay out of my womb.”

As the marchers on Pennsylvania Ave. spotted scattered anti-abortion banners, they booed and chanted, “Choice, choice!” There were no clashes but many District of Columbia police officers stood by just in case.

Like several marchers who were interviewed, Nancy Watt of Westlake Village, Calif., mentioned the controversial confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, saying she was frustrated by the way senators had handled allegations of sexual harassment against him by law professor Anita Faye Hill.

“I’m very much frustrated and angry about what’s happening with abortion rights . . . even about the Anita Hill ordeal,” Watt said. “We need to wake up the powers that be.”

Watt celebrated her daughter Heather’s 26th birthday Sunday by flying both of them here to take part in the march. Both said they voted for Bush in 1988 but will not in November.

“You can’t take away someone’s right of choice,” Nancy Watt said. “Enough is enough.”

Chris Papdoulis, a computer specialist from Minnesota, said that “this rally will have no impact on the Bush Administration. He won’t change his mind but women all over this country will become more aware and notice the erosion of their rights.”

Elizabeth Chrisman of New York, holding a handmade sign that read, “Bush Look Out--Republican Pro-Choice,” said she plans to switch her vote to Clinton. She had voted for Bush four years ago, she said.

“If it goes back to the states, we’ve lost some ground,” she said. “And I’ve had it with Bush. The Anita Hill thing really made me angry.”

Tedda Becker, a clerical worker in an Illinois law office and a NOW member, said: “I hope that anybody who’s running for office pays attention to the number of angry women here today. I hope it opens some eyes.”