Pro-Choice Activists Counter Abortion Protestors

LOS ANGELES -- Pro-choice organizations participated in a counter-demonstration Saturday to secure an unhindered entrance for patients entering an abortion clinic at Sixth Street and Westmoreland Avenue.

40 Days For Choice, a counter-organization to 40 Days For Life, an anti-abortion group that is conducting a 40 day protest blitz on abortion clinics around the country, coordinated the event. While pro-life activists intervened to dissuade women from entering the Family Planning Association Medical Group, pro-choice activists attempted to escort women into the clinic harassment free.

Pro-choice activists lined up in front of the clinic to block demonstrators from intimidating patients. Some pro-choice activists wore white t-shirts identifying themselves as clinic escorts. Their job was to accompany patients approaching the clinic and provide an unmolested passage.

“Legality means very little without access,” said Cory Gatrall, co-founder of 40 Days for Choice and clinic escort. “They know they don’t have to make it illegal if they can stop people from going in.”

Anna Koper, President of the Santa Monica College Feminist Alliance and clinic escort, said the Alliance, along with 40 Days for Choice and the International Socialist Organization, were there to help people get into the clinic and to show support.

“[The pro-life activists] want to make it so people don’t want to come here...to shutdown the clinic,” Koper said. However, not all women entering the clinic are pregnant explains Koper.

“Half of the women are not here for abortions. They are here to get pap smears or condoms – to get healthcare,” she said.

Some pro-life demonstrators passed out flyers containing information on Crisis Pregnancy Centers, or CPC’s, to the women entering the clinic.

Karyme Lozano, a pro-life activist, attended the demonstration to help promote Los Angeles Pregnancy Services, or LAPS, a catholic CPC. Lozano’s goal was to provide an option to pregnant women.

“How can you be pro-choice when you just offer abortions?” Lozano said.

According to LAPS’s website, their mission is to “provide the caring support that a woman in a crisis pregnancy needs so that she may choose life for her unborn baby.”

Pro-choice activists contend that CPC’s are often fake clinics that use scare tactics and misinformation to dissuade pregnant women from having an abortion.

A flier passed out at Saturday’s demonstration documented instances where women died from abortions performed at Family Planning clinics in California. However, the Centers for Disease Control’s 2005 Abortion Surveillance Report paints a different picture of abortion risk. It stated that seven women died in the U.S. from legal abortions out of 820,151 performed that year. Previous reports maintain similar ratios.

“Each side has their different story,” John Anthony said, the organizer of Saturday’s pro-life demonstration. “What is misinformation to them is truth to us.”

Most pro-life activists in attendance peacefully prayed reciting “The Hail Mary,” “The Our Father,” and others.

“We came out here to pray for these people [and] pray for the end of abortion,” said Anthony who believes abstinence is a better alternative to giving out contraceptives.

“Abortion is an easy way out,” he said.

Police, who were present to make sure the clinic entrance was not blocked, occasionally intervened to maintain a peaceful assembly Saturday. Although both groups cited a few instances of pushing, provoking, and harassment, the demonstrations at the Westmoreland Avenue clinic have been mostly peaceful.

The national demonstrations that began on September 23rd will continue to November 1st ending 40 days of protests and counter-protests.