250 Pro-Choice Backers Rally in Van Nuys

Waving wire coat hangers adorned with strips of red cloth, more than 250 people demonstrated peacefully at the Van Nuys federal building Saturday afternoon to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion.

The demonstrators ranged from women who said they had illegal abortions before Roe vs. Wade to teen-agers who said they feared they would not be able to make choices about their own lives if states restrict abortions. And the speakers included the real “Jane Roe,” Norma McCorvey.

In the Webster decision in July, the Supreme Court ruled that states could limit the right to abortion. Since then, forces on both sides of the issue have mobilized to bring attention to their positions.

Earlier Saturday, hundreds of antiabortion and pro-choice demonstrators rallied at a women’s clinic in Pacoima. Operation Rescue, an antiabortion group, planned to blockade the entrance to the clinic to prevent women seeking abortions from entering. But the clinic had sent all of its clients to other facilities.

During the afternoon rally, sponsored by the San Fernando Valley chapter of the National Organization for Women, speakers described illegal abortions in back-alley rooms and politicians urged participants to take active roles supporting pro-choice candidates in 1990 elections.

Candice Vorheis and her husband, Bill Russell, of Woodland Hills, attended the demonstration with their two young sons, whom the couple had adopted.

“I am very happy that these two women decided not to have abortions,” Vorheis said, hugging her younger son. But, she said, “I still don’t want somebody else telling me what to do. We think women should have a right to choose.”

Mac Shain, 74, of Westlake Village said he came to the demonstration on behalf of his 12-year-old granddaughter.

“I am fighting for her right to do what she wants with her body in the future,” said Shain, a retired junior high school guidance counselor. “The American past is founded on choice.”

Shain and his wife, Rose, participated in the national March on Washington in April, which drew nearly 100,000 people.

Rose Shain said she had an illegal abortion in the 1930s, when she was 21, because she had just gone back to college to obtain a degree, and she and her husband could not support a child. She found a physician who was willing to do the abortion, but he was later criminally prosecuted for performing them, she said.

McCorvey--”Jane Roe” of the landmark case--told the crowd that she believed that outlawing or restricting abortions would lead to the deaths and suffering of many, but would not stop women from trying to end unwanted pregnancies.

In 1969, McCorvey, unmarried and broke, sought an abortion from her family doctor, who refused to perform the illegal procedure. After visiting an illegal abortion clinic and seeing its conditions, she decided to challenge the Texas law. Her case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down the law in 1973 with the Roe vs. Wade decision.

For 15 years, McCorvey kept silent about her identity, but the shy Texan went public when abortion foe Robert H. Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court. Although she said she sometimes feels uncomfortable in front of crowds, she now tours the country speaking about her experiences.

“In the years before the Roe decision, millions of women had abortions and about 5,000 women died from them each year, and thousands more were hospitalized from them. Obviously abortions will continue whether it is legal or not,” McCorvey said. “I do not promote abortion. I do promote personal choice.”

During the rally, some participants congregated at the curb waving signs urging motorists on Van Nuys Boulevard to “honk if you support abortions.” The din of car horns and the responding cheers of demonstrators sometimes drowned out the speakers.

Nancy Watt, one of those standing at the curb, proudly clutched a sign that identified her as “another middle-class, ex-Bush-supporting-WASP for choice.”

“I am just somebody’s old middle-class mom. We aren’t all left-wing radicals. We cross every line,” Watt said.

Watt said that in the early 1970s she was involved in the Equal Rights Amendment movement, but then focused her attention on her children, now 23 and 22. She said the Supreme Court’s ruling last July in the Webster case pushed her back into action.

“We thought it would always be legal. We relaxed after Roe, but the Webster decision has changed everything,” she said.

On Monday--the actual anniversary of Roe vs. Wade-- McCorvey and feminist attorney Gloria Allred will travel to Sacramento to lobby legislators and Gov. George Deukmejian to restore $20 million in family-planning funds that the governor cut from the budget last year.

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