The State : 380 Arrested Over Abortion

Police made 380 arrests as people on both sides of the abortion issue clashed in noisy but generally peaceful demonstrations outside family planning clinics in Northern and Central California. Anti-abortion protesters gathered at clinics in Oakland, Fresno and Chico as part of a coordinated series of anti-abortion demonstrations in the region. Authorities said they arrested 200 people in Chico, 120 in Fresno and 60 in Oakland after demonstrators, in defiance of a federal judge’s order, blocked entrances to the clinics. Police had no breakdown on those arrested but believed most of those arrested opposed abortion. “The purpose is to close the clinics for the day and provide alternatives to women,” said Sue Connelly, spokeswoman for Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group. Lorri Foster, of Planned Parenthood of Central California, called efforts to prevent women from entering an abortion clinic a “completely intolerable development in the anti-choice movement.”