Anti-Abortionists Outnumbered at Clinic : Protest: Subterfuge by foes of Roe decision fails to deter pro-choice forces from meeting them at a secret target. There were no arrests and no violence.

It was dark and chilly, a little after 5 a.m. Saturday, when cars filled with anti-abortion forces started trickling into the parking lot of Vineyard Christian Fellowship.

People huddled in groups of three or four, shivering and talking softly. A few carried walkie-talkies so they could relay information quickly from the church--one of seven muster points throughout Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Until the last possible moment, the name of the clinic to be targeted by the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue--part of its annual protest over Monday’s anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion--had been kept secret.

Carefully guarded maps were passed to group leaders, and the name of the targeted clinic was whispered to some followers. Others were sent as decoys to the wrong location. But despite the secrecy, a pro-choice network--using phones, two-way radios and spies--had passed on a warning to the target clinic.

This is, after all, a war, leaders of both sides say.

“It’s a tactical kind of ground warfare that we were not experts at a year ago,” said one opponent of the anti-abortion demonstrators, Robin Schneider, executive director of the California Abortion Rights Action League. “We’ve learned a lot since then.”

From the Anaheim muster point, cars lined up in two anti-abortion cavalcades heading in opposite directions at about 6:15 a.m. A few minutes later a mobile home, by then almost alone in the parking lot, pulled onto Cerritos Avenue, crisscrossed between streets and parking lots, then headed north on the Santa Ana Freeway--toward Her Medical Clinic in the Pacoima neighborhood of Los Angeles.

But the subterfuge failed. Within minutes, pro-choice activists stationed at the Anaheim parking lot called, via two-way radio, pro-choice organizers in Los Angeles, who in turn transmitted a warning to the Pacoima clinic.

“I talked to the clinic director at 6:45,” Schneider said. “I told her we’d gotten a map. We had people on site. That was their assignment.”

By mid-morning Saturday, about 600 pro-choice activists and 250 anti-abortion demonstrators had gathered at Her Medical Clinic on Van Nuys Boulevard, which is in a largely Latino neighborhood and serves mostly low-income women. Police closed to traffic about five blocks along the boulevard because the crowd had overflowed into the street.

There were no arrests and no violence.

Owners of the clinic said the protest had little impact on its activities. Once clinic leaders received word that it would be targeted, they decided not to open and simply asked patients to go to another office.

Clinic operators said no abortions were canceled because of the protest. Anti-abortion activists said, however, that they are certain that at least some abortions had been scheduled, because they say they make bogus abortion appointments to be sure that they hit a clinic planning to perform abortions on the day they strike.

“We don’t go to a place unless we’re positive they’re going to be performing abortions,” said Susan Finn, 26, of Anaheim, a spokeswoman for Operation Rescue.

Finn said she became active in anti-abortion demonstrations after she decided against an abortion herself two years ago and had a baby out of wedlock.

Opposite sentiments were chanted by abortion-rights activists.

“Freedom of choice, hear our voice!” hundreds chanted.

“You run your own body, let me run mine,” a smaller group sang.

The rally drew several pro-choice politicians, including Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae) and State Controller Gray Davis, a Democrat who has been mentioned as a potential candidate for both governor and the state Senate in 1992.

Davis told a cheering crowd of supporters that the pro-choice ranks have grown dramatically since the Webster U.S. Supreme Court decision of last year, which gave states broader powers to regulate abortions.

Davis said he has been attending the pro-choice rallies set up to counter Operation Rescue efforts since they started targeting clinics in Southern California about a year ago.

“There’s no question Webster woke a sleeping giant,” Davis said. “People who were taking the right of choice for granted realized it was under siege, and consequently they became very active.”

Davis mentioned the California Legislature’s overwhelming vote last week to restore money for family planning--which had been slashed from the budget by Gov. George Deukmejian 18 months ago--as the latest and most dramatic indication that pro-choice activists are gaining ground.

Meanwhile, about 250 pro-choice people demonstrated peacefully at the Van Nuys federal building Saturday afternoon to commemorate the 17th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.

Demonstrators ranged from women who said they had had illegal abortions during the years before Roe vs. Wade to teen-agers who said they fear that their ability to determine their futures will be lost if states restrict abortion.

Anti-abortion activists in Orange County will continue protests today with a “life chain” from 2 to 3 p.m. Working through churches and anti-abortion groups, organizers have asked abortion foes to form a human chain starting at the corner of Katella Avenue and Beach Boulevard and spreading down both streets in either direction.

Times staff writer Amy Kazmin contributed to this story.

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