Abortion Activists in Stand-Off : Demonstrations: Protests at clinics in Los Angeles and Orange counties culminate in Fullerton.

Hundreds of anti-abortion and pro-choice advocates converged on a Fullerton women’s clinic Saturday, culminating a morning of rallies and protests at various clinics in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Police estimated the crowd at 300 and said it was equally divided between members of Operation Rescue, the anti-abortion group, and by pro-choice forces.

The stand-off was peaceful. 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.

Earlier, anti-abortion activists had skipped from clinic to clinic, apparently attempting 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 Eleanor Smeal, president of the Fund for a Feminist Majority, a national abortion rights group based in Los Angeles. A crowd that sported blue pro-choice buttons, signs and T-shirts cheered.

“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 Dianne Feinstein, a Democratic candidate for governor, came to the makeshift podium.

“We will stand shoulder to shoulder until we have our right to protect our reproductive freedom,” Feinstein said. Women, she said, found “sanctuary” with the Roe vs. Wade decision by the Supreme Court that established the legality of abortions in 1973.

But in the court’s Webster decision, which earlier this year gave states broader powers on the abortion issue, “this basing was thrown to a political arena and the vagrancies of state legislatures, which are all controlled by men,” Feinstein said.

About 20 feet away and a short time later, Russ Neal, director of the Southern California Operation Rescue, addressed his followers, who carried graphic posters, 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.”

Owners of the clinic could not be reached for comment. Kathy Spillar, national coordinator for the Fund for a Feminist Majority, said the facility had planned to remain closed Saturday and that no abortions had been scheduled. The clinic offers a variety of health services.

Carla Black, a member of Operation Rescue who described herself as a counselor, said she 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 an anti-abortion center that helps pregnant women.

The day began early for both sides. 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 on Saturday. The anti-abortion group had 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 also were treated as scheduled, pro-choice activists said. They said 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 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 demonstrators were arrested for blocking patients from entering a 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 hoping to recoup overtime costs for police assigned to maintain order at the protests.

Hundreds of pro-choice and anti-abortion activists braved freezing cold Saturday to rally at the Brookline clinic.