THE ABORTION DECISION : High Court Ruling Stirs Emotional Reactions by Southern Californians

A political activist was born in Hancock Park on Monday morning. Karen Zampa, a 27-year-old housewife and mother, turned her television set to the news, heard what the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in its long-awaited abortion decision and got mad. Very mad.

“I decided I just had to join some organization,” she said. She called the local office of the National Organization for Women. The voice on the other end of the phone told her about a pro-choice rally on Barham Boulevard near Burbank. By noon, even though she hadn’t been to a demonstration since foreign policy protests at college, Zampa was at the rally. With 11-month-old Katie in her arms, she listened to speakers pledge to pressure legislators, the courts and the voters to keep abortion legal in California.

A political activist may have been born in Thousand Oaks, too. Cheryl Schoolland has been counseling pregnant women at an anti-abortion center for nine months but she never participated in Operation Rescue or other anti-abortion demonstrations. But “if the pro-choice activists take this to the ballot, I might get more involved,” she said. “I’d write letters, make phone calls.”

Highly Visible Issue

Similar strong and intensely emotional reactions to the court’s ruling surfaced throughout Southern California, with both sides agreeing that states’ new power to place restrictions on abortion will make the issue a highly visible one here. Still, both pro-choice and anti-abortion rallies drew relatively small mid-day crowds of about 100 each. The dominant feeling was that it will be months before the impact in California is known.

It was clear, though, that more people have felt the call to action on the abortion issue here in recent months as the court’s decision neared. The Southern California branch of the California Abortion Rights Action League has seen its membership jump from 6,000 to 8,000 in the past four months. Hundreds were arrested to show their devotion to the anti-abortion cause during Operation Rescue’s clinic sit-ins in Southern California in May and June.

At least one manager of a Planned Parenthood clinic said she would urge patients to write letters to their elected representatives. And several women there for pregnancy tests said they intended to do just that.

At a flurry of press conferences and in telephone interviews, the ruling brought forth strong words from those already involved in the abortion battle.

“The court said today that the right to privacy in the United States is for men only,” said Kathy Spillar, Santa Monica-based national coordinator for the Fund for the Feminist Majority. She said her group is considering sponsorship of a ballot initiative to support California’s current abortion laws as “a preemptive strike,” though she added, “It’s a calculated risk.”

‘2 Classes of Care’

“It’s a sad, sad situation,” said Keith Russell, chairman of the medical committee of Planned Parenthood. Allowing states to ban public funding of abortions and prohibit abortions in public hospitals “means you’ve got two classes of medical care.”

By contrast, Susan Carpenter McMillan, president of the Right to Life League of Southern California, said: “It’s wonderful that we have taken this to the state level. We’re going to make sure we keep our (anti-abortion politicians) in line. There’s not going to be one pro-life representative who is not going to be visited by us. There will be no more fence-straddling.”

McMillan said the concerns expressed by the pro-choice side that poor women will be most hard hit by the decision are not valid. “I don’t think poor women should be allowed to kill their unborn children any more than rich women,” she said. “The pro-abortion people should finance their abortions if they’re so concerned about the poor.”

The Coalition for Safe and Legal Abortion organized a vigil and rallies outside the district office of Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti.

Roberti issued a statement saying that he supports “the thrust” of the Supreme Court’s decision and adding: “I also believe that the state must go further in guaranteeing to all children the right to shelter, health care, a secure home and freedom from hunger.”

Rabbi Allen Freehling, United Methodist Rev. Ignacio Castuera and celebrities including actresses Tess Harper and Ann Magnuson urged those attending the rally to pressure state legislators to keep California’s laws intact.

By nightfall, the crowd had grown to about 250. Protesters cheered the arrival of a 16-foot plaster “Goddess of Liberty,” modeled after the Beijing “Goddess of Democracy”--except that this statue wore a sash with the words “Freedom of Choice.”

Activists Celebrate

In Orange County, outside the Fullerton office of Assemblyman Ross Johnson, about 125 anti-abortion activists celebrated with a flag-waving prayer rally. They greatly outnumbered about 25 pro-choice protesters.

“The day of the unborn is here,” said the Rev. Lou Sheldon to cheers and cries of “Amen.” While the decision did not reverse the court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling which legalized abortion, Sheldon told the crowd, “Roe has lost its feathers, its wings and its limbs.”

About 200 worshipers attended a nondenominational anti-abortion service at Immaculate Conception Church near downtown Monday night. The service was briefly interrupted by about 10 pro-choice demonstrators who burst in, chanting, while the congregation was singing a hymn.

Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony said in a prepared statement that “the Webster decision by the Supreme Court is a major first step to assure that our nation will not only promise--but also deliver--liberty and justice for all, born, and unborn.”

Contributing to this story were staff writers Stephen C. Chavez, Alan Citron, Jonathan L. Gaw, Charisse Jones, Thuan Le, Franki V. Ransom, Yolanda Rodriguez, Alisa Samuels, Lynn Smith, Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Teresa Tamura, Luz M. Villareal and Ellen Yan.