Long Beach Lets Abortion Protest Wither

Long Beach police chose not to arrest about 300 demonstrators staging a noisy sit-in Friday at a medical building, allowing an anti-abortion protest to play itself out after five hours, but stirring anger among the pro-choice forces. Hours later, Operation Rescue drew 1,500 people, its largest turnout yet, to an evening rally to prepare for today’s protest, the third and final day of demonstrations in the Los Angeles area.

“Is it worth a major confrontation?” asked Police Chief Lawrence Binkley after deciding that arrests in Long Beach were unnecessary because Operation Rescue protesters agreed to move. Binkley explained that it was within his discretion whether to press misdemeanor charges, and said it was “in the interest of justice” to allow the demonstrators to disperse on their own.

Although police had concluded that demonstrators were breaking the law by refusing to allow a patient and a receptionist to enter the Women’s Care Medical Group offices at 2800 Pacific Ave., and although they indicated that arrests were imminent, they finally chose to let the tense, five-hour standoff wither away.

That did not please pro-choice advocates who were on the scene soon after the Operation Rescue demonstrators arrived at 6:40 a.m. and who set up their own demonstration with “Keep Abortions Legal” placards and shouts at the anti-abortionists singing “Amazing Grace.”

Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Ruth Liberman accused the police of bowing to Operation Rescue pressure and predicted that Long Beach is now “likely to be the site of another attack.”

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Carol Sobel called the absence of arrests “a win for Operation Rescue” and a “loss for the Police Department.”

‘Double Standard’ Alleged

Sobel and several members of the news media complained that the police used a “double standard” in threatening to arrest reporters, photographers and pro-choice advocates for not moving immediately away from the building, but allowing the anti-abortion demonstrators to remain where they were for a while.

On Thursday, 373 supporters of Operation Rescue were arrested, booked and released after blocking doorways at the the Family Planning Associates Medical Group in Cypress. Operation Rescue organizers had said for weeks they were going to blockade two or three Southland clinics a day during a three-day campaign.

Although Operation Rescue organizers have made much of the thousands arrested across the country for deliberately breaking local laws in a desire to serve “a higher law” and “save babies,” they willingly left the scene at midday Friday without being cited or booked for anything.

“Our objective is not to get arrested, but to stop abortions,” said the organization’s Randy Adler as the demonstration dwindled. “They said if we cleared the street, there wouldn’t be any arrests.”

Emotions High

Although there were no arrests, there was plenty of passion during the confrontation outside the medical office.

Some of those who were standing around with grisly pictures of fetuses and fetus parts were small children.

Eileen Wilson, 8, and her cousin, Ann Wright, 9, were standing on the sidelines holding color photographs of aborted fetuses, some of which had broken into pieces. Ann also had a small cardboard sign that she had lettered, which said, “Stop Abortion.”

Both were shy about being interviewed, but Eileen’s mother, Joyce Wilson, prompted her: “Who are we trying to please?” Eileen answered: “God.”

Ann added, “It’s wrong to kill the babies, because if their mothers killed them, they wouldn’t be living.”

‘Holy Week of Rescue’

By early afternoon, the organizers withdrew to prepare for the night’s rally at Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim. At the rally, the audience filed past a casket containing a blackened female fetus, while Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry played the piano and sang “I’m Crying for You, Baby”--his own composition.

Anti-abortion protests were staged on Good Friday in at least seven other U.S. cities in the recharged campaign to focus the nation’s attention of the Supreme Court’s reconsideration of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion. About 140 people were arrested in Philadelphia and 32 were arrested in Alexandria, Va., as anti-abortion protesters blocked clinic entrances.

Despite criticism from the pro-choice forces, who have mustered a well-organized counter-campaign to keep clinics open in the face of the sit-ins, Police Chief Binkley pointed out that arresting and booking 200 to 400 people would tie up 100 of his officers for the rest of the day.

Besides, he said, “Long Beach doesn’t need this right now.”

It was his response to a reporter who asked if his decision had any connection with the case of Don Jackson, a black police officer on leave from the Hawthorne Police Department who was videotaped in an angry confrontation with a white Long Beach policeman who appeared to shove Jackson’s head into a plate glass window.

Binkley pointed out that the women’s clinic was not open anyway.

That was true enough--although the presence of about 300 Operation Rescue anti-abortionists and more or less the same number of pro-choice counter demonstrators had a lot to do with it.

The pro-choice people, in fact, were unhappy that the Women’s Care clinic did not open despite the demonstration. “We would have preferred that the clinic stood its ground and had not closed,” said Ivy Bottini, a member of the Coalition for Safe and Legal Abortions. “We were there to give them support.”

Doors Opened

By mid-afternoon, with demonstrators of both persuasions gone, the small Women’s Care clinic opened its doors at last--but apparently performed no abortions. Neither Dr. Stuart Chesky, an osteopath, nor Dr. Mone Sandhu, a medical doctor, was available.

An office staff member confirmed that abortions are performed there, but did not say how many.

A young woman who had been called Thursday night and advised to skip her 2 p.m. Friday appointment for an abortion because of a possible demonstration showed up anyway. She was rescheduled for next week because, she was told, no abortions would be done Friday.

She said she already has two children. “It’s hard,” she said, “when you don’t have a husband.”

A woman friend who drove her to the clinic said of the Operation Rescue people, “They won’t help us with the money or raise the kids, and it’s just too hard.”

Army of Protest

Cary Rothenberg, who recently opened a chiropractic practice in the building shared by the clinic and other medical offices, said his office is normally closed on Fridays and he did not know about the small army of protesters descending on the place until his attorney called and suggested that he let it be known he does not run an abortion clinic.

Rothenberg said he turned on television and saw his office sign, with his name and phone number, being broadcast nationwide. “I was looking for publicity,” he said, “but not this kind. I’ve been caught in the cross fire.”

Pro-choice leaders were surprised when Operation Rescue zeroed in on the small clinic rather than on the Family Planning Assn. of Long Beach, a larger clinic several blocks away. Nearly 100 volunteers were on hand to defend Family Planning when the anti-abortion caravan went past on its way to the smaller facility.

Asked why they targeted the smaller one, one Operation Rescue member would say only that “many factors” were involved in the strategy, including the number of doorways and their accessibility.

One Arrest

There was one arrest Friday at the larger clinic, where about 15 anti-abortionists did appear about 7:30 a.m. One of them, identified by Long Beach police as Greg Dilsaver, 38, of Thousand Oaks allegedly stepped on and then hurled himself over some of the pro-choice people sitting in front. He was arrested on suspicion of simple battery.

Terry, 29, who faced a militant batch of pro-choice clinic defenders when he arrived at the main protest, fled from them around a corner of the building. One carried a sign that read, “If Only Randall Terry’s Mother Had Had a Choice.”

He was soon served with papers that added him to the defendants in a lawsuit filed three years ago by the National Organization for Women. He and the three others are charged with racketeering, extortion and stealing fetal parts in connection with protests in Georgia.

Organization’s Point

“If unborn children are human beings, then we are transporting body parts,” said Operation Rescue staff member Susan Odom, seizing the opportunity to make the organization’s point that fetuses are, indeed, people.

Margo Feinberg, vice president of the National Lawyers Guild and a member of the Coalition to Keep Abortion Safe and Legal, said the service of the papers was “one more step in our actions to stop Randall Terry.”

She added, “Now we’ll have a forum before the federal court to pursue damages against him and his organization for the harm that they have been doing.”

Times staff writers Judy Pasternak, Charisse Jones, Jack Jones, Karen Tumulty and Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this article.