300 Activists Square Off on Abortion in Fullerton : Demonstration: Each side claims victory in rallies staged at more than 20 clinics throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Hundreds of anti-abortion and pro-choice advocates staged side-by-side rallies at a women’s clinic Saturday, culminating a morning of protests and counter-protests at more than 20 clinics throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Police estimated the crowd at about 300 and said it was equally divided between abortion-rights activists and Operation Rescue abortion opponents. But each camp estimated its own group at several hundred more than that.

Pro-choice advocates rallied in front of the Women’s Center on Orangethorpe Avenue singing, “Joy to the world, choice has come” and other modified Christmas carols. Nearby, anti-abortion protesters sat and sometimes kneeled in entrance ways as they prayed and sang hymns. There were no arrests or reports of violence.

Earlier, anti-abortion activists had skipped from clinic to clinic, trying to elude pro-choice advocates, who were tracking them throughout the morning.

Both sides claimed victory at rallies that began shortly after noon.

“Our numbers are growing and growing and growing,” said Ellie Smeal, president of the Fund for the Feminist Majority, a national abortion-rights group based in Los Angeles. A crowd that sported blue pro-choice buttons, signs and T-shirts cheered her remarks.

“We are determined to make this a pro-choice assembly and a pro-choice governor’s mansion,” said Smeal, past president of the National Organization for Women. Moments later, former San Francisco Mayor Diane Feinstein, a candidate in the governor’s race, came to the makeshift podium.

“We will stand shoulder to shoulder until we have our right to protect our reproductive freedom,” Feinstein said. The Roe vs. Wade decision by the Supreme Court established the legality of abortions in 1973. But in the court’s decision in the Webster case earlier this year, which gave states broader powers, the abortion issue “was thrown to a political arena and the vagrancies of state legislatures, which are all controlled by men,” she said.

About 20 feet away and a short while later, Russ Neal, director of the Southern California Operation Rescue, addressed his followers, who carried graphic posters and signs reading “Stop Killing Babies,” as well as prayer books and Bibles.

“This was a very successful rescue,” Neal said. “We have heard that they had a full schedule of abortions today, and we got here before they opened and before those children who would have been killed were killed.”

Pro-choice and Operation Rescue forces gave conflicting accounts of whether the demonstration had affected the day’s business at the Fullerton clinic. Owners of the clinic could not be reached for comment. Kathy Spillar, national coordinator for the Fund for the Feminist Majority, said the clinic had planned to remain closed Saturday and that no abortions had been scheduled at the clinic, which offers a variety of health services, most of which do not pertain to abortion.

But Carla Black, a member of Operation Rescue who described herself as a counselor, said that she had persuaded one pregnant woman on her way to the clinic to reconsider her plans for an abortion. Black said the woman was taken by other Operation Rescue workers to the Crisis Pregnancy Center, which she said was an anti-abortion center that helps pregnant women.

The day began early for both anti-abortion and pro-choice activists. Spillar said more than 500 pro-choice activists had been dispatched by 5 a.m. to 26 clinics throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties that had been considered potential targets of Operation Rescue. The anti-abortion group had earlier announced it was planning a “rescue”--during which members try to form blockades and keep clinics from opening--but, as in the past, Operation Rescue leaders kept secret the precise targets until early Saturday morning.

Before converging in Fullerton, Operation Rescue sent forces to clinics in El Monte, Long Beach and Tustin. Pro-choice activists said patients were scheduled for early morning appointments and thus managed to avoid protesters at the Doctor’s Family Planning Clinic on Irvine Boulevard in Tustin. The patients were inside before 8 a.m., while Operation Rescue workers did not arrive until about half an hour later. In Long Beach, patients were also treated as scheduled, pro-choice activists said. They added that the El Monte clinic was not scheduled to open Saturday.

By 9 a.m., most of the day’s activities were focused in Fullerton, where pro-choice and anti-abortion activists staged rallies and then lingered until later in the afternoon.

“I’m always fearful people won’t cross over the Orange curtain, but Los Angeles and Orange County coalesced today in big numbers,” said Barbara Jackson, a member of the Pro-Choice Coalition of Orange County. “Pro-choice people are going to support women’s rights anywhere in the country, even Orange County.”

Demonstrations were less peaceful in Brookline, Mass., where 60 Operation Rescue activists were arrested for blocking patients from entering the Repro Associates clinic. Authorities videotaped the anti-abortion protesters and said they would use the tapes in a pending civil suit against Operation Rescue. The anti-abortion group has been charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization law by Brookline officials, who hope to recoup overtime costs for police assigned to maintain order at the protests.