Pro-Choice Unit Targets Food Outlet

The battle over abortion moved Wednesday to a Los Angeles fast-food restaurant--a Carl’s Jr. outlet--where 100 pro-choice picketers protested the financial support that the founder of the Orange County-based chain has given to anti-abortion efforts.

The picketers described the late-afternoon action as part of a national strategy to fight back against major funders of anti-abortion organizations, including Carl’s Jr. founder Carl Karcher and Domino’s Pizza magnate Thomas S. Monaghan.

Carrying placards that read, “Keep Abortion Legal” and “Carl Thinks Women Are Meat,” the picketers marched outside a Carl’s Jr. restaurant at Western Avenue and Sunset Boulevard.

“They are taking money from the very people that they are using the money against,” said Tammy Bruce, spokeswoman for the Fired Up for Choice abortion rights group, which organized the rally. “We have a choice and it is not to feed into that.”

Motivated in part by a July U.S. Supreme Court decision that opened the way for states to limit access to abortion, once largely reactive abortion rights groups are intensifying their lobbying efforts and increasingly conducting demonstrations.

Kathy Spillar, national coordinator of the Fund for the Feminist Majority, said the Carl’s Jr. rally “is one of the first. But you’ll see this happening more often.”

The protesters did not disrupt business inside the restaurant but did shout slogans and tried to persuade people not to go inside.

One customer, who refused to give her name, said she is pro-choice and, because of the protest, will think twice before eating at Carl’s Jr. again. But she added, “I don’t think it’s a benefit to them disturbing anyone when they’re eating.”

Spokewomen for Carl’s Jr. and Domino’s said Wednesday that the boycotts are misguided, since donations made to anti-abortion groups have come from individual executives rather than from the corporations.

Carl Karcher Enterprises Inc., parent firm of Carl’s Jr. restaurants, issued a three-paragraph statement Wednesday saying that allegations that “a set part of every dollar spent at Carl’s Jr. is given to the pro-life movement is simply not true.”

At most, said Karcher Enterprises spokeswoman Patricia Parks, the firm itself has donated several hundred dollars to candidates and organizations associated with the anti-abortion movement. In the last five years, she added, no such contributions have been made directly by Karcher Enterprises to Operation Rescue or other such organizations.

At the same time, Parks said, “It’s true that Mr. Karcher has been very open and public regarding his support of the pro-life philosophy.

“Mr. Karcher is not going to change his views, so we expect that the opposition against him will continue,” she said. “ . . . (But) from the company’s perspective, we believe Mr. Karcher and the company shouldn’t be punished for exercising his right to freedom of speech.”

Over the last two decades, anti-abortion groups have waged similar boycotts of pharmaceutical firms that market drugs designed to induce abortions.