Both Sides in Abortion Issue Gearing Up for More Demonstrations

South Bay supporters of abortion rights, heartened by a sympathetic White House for the first time in 12 years, say they will remain prepared for more demonstrations over the nation’s abortion policy.

And that is exactly what will happen, say abortion opponents, who have made the South Bay a focal point of their effort to overturn a woman’s right to abortion.

“We’re going to see pro-lifers take a more active role in the streets,” said J.T. Finn, director of the South Bay Pro-Life Coalition. He predicted “stepped up pro-life efforts across America, and certainly here in the South Bay” to counter White House support for abortion rights.

In coming months, abortion foes plan to distribute anti-abortion pamphlets to South Bay high school students and demonstrate outside the Torrance offices of private doctors they claim perform abortions. Operation Rescue has also vowed blockades at a Planned Parenthood clinic scheduled to open in the South Bay this spring.

Still, with the election of President Clinton, one South Bay women’s group said it was moving from a strategy of “clinic defense” to “clinic support,” reflecting the more optimistic political psyche of abortion-rights advocates.

“Our position is the legal one, the tenable one,” said Deborah Blair Porter, co-coordinator of the Palos Verdes/South Bay chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Clinton this month revoked the so-called “gag rule” on abortion counseling at federally funded clinics imposed by the Bush Administration. The move deeply angered abortion opponents and won praise from abortion-rights groups.

In addition, a new California law barring blockades at clinics could hurt the anti-abortion movement, said NOW’s Porter.

But Porter and others say they are not underestimating the opposition, and abortion foes vow to keep the volume turned up.

At Operation Rescue of California, spokeswoman Sue Finn is calling the Clinton presidency “a shot in the arm” for abortion opponents.

“People had been relying on Reagan and Bush in the past,” said Sue Finn, who is J.T. Finn’s sister. “Now that Clinton is in, it’s up to us to try to stop abortion.”

Sue Finn downplayed the importance of the anti-blockade law passed by the California Legislature last year, which makes it a crime to obstruct a health care facility, church or school. She said participants in Operation Rescue blockades have faced jail before.

“It’s no greater threat than our people have suffered in the past,” she said.

Both sides predict the South Bay will remain a center of the abortion debate, owing to well-entrenched groups and the expected April opening of the area’s first Planned Parenthood clinic at an undisclosed site in or near Torrance. The clinic, which will offer abortions among other services, has sparked controversy since plans for it were unveiled nearly two years ago.

A clinic supporter says she hopes Clinton’s actions will help defuse tensions between the two camps in the abortion debate.

“I hope we can create a culture that requires zero abortions,” said Ann Fair Branagan, co-founder of a clinic support group and past president of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. “I would hope we can get to the point where education and prevention will bring us together.”

J.T. Finn said that although he and other abortion foes want to educate the public, he opposes the Planned Parenthood approach to sex education.

He wants to see more efforts promoting abstinence before marriage, calling it “the best way to discourage teen-age pregnancy and teen-age abortion.”

South Bay abortion opponents will distribute pamphlets to students outside area high schools, just as they did last year, J.T. Finn said.

Last spring, officials at West High School in Torrance challenged anti-abortion activists when they started distributing pamphlets at the school.

“There was some confusion as to what could and couldn’t be done,” said J. Richard Ducar, administrator of special services for the Torrance Unified School District. Since then, principals have been notified that people can pass out information on public thoroughfares, Ducar said.