Rallies Try to Put Abortion Issue Back in Spotlight : Demonstrations: Hundreds of protesters from both sides turn out at a Los Angeles medical clinic. No arrests are reported.

The heated debate over abortion returned to Los Angeles on Saturday as hundreds of demonstrators from both sides of the issue squared off outside a medical clinic, then separately staged pep rallies.

Spreading over the lawn in front of the Federal Building in Westwood, hundreds of people chanted slogans demanding that abortion remain legal and heard warnings that women are gradually losing the right to an abortion because of conservative courts and state legislatures.

“This is not about keeping abortion legal and safe,” said Tammy Bruce, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women. “For poor women, it’s gone. For young women, it’s gone. . . . We have got to get it back.”

Speakers for the rally, held to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the constitutional amendment that gave women the right to vote, ran the gamut from flamboyant ACT UP/LA activists to elected officials, a rabbi and the screenwriter for “Thelma and Louise.”

Feminist attorney Gloria Allred was there, comparing anti-abortion Operation Rescue activists to Soviet coup plotters, a small group of “reckless adventurers destined to failure.”

“Like Boris Yeltsin and Susan B. Anthony,” Allred said, “we too will stand up for our rights.”

Operation Rescue has received a great deal of publicity in recent weeks as its members defied a federal court order and repeatedly blocked a family planning clinic in Wichita, Kan. Scores were arrested.

Organizers of the Westwood rally had hoped to recapture some of the spotlight by bringing out huge crowds Saturday. Police estimates of attendance ranged from 700 to 1,500; organizers put the number at 2,500.

Perhaps the largest round of applause went to state Controller Gray Davis, when he told the demonstrators of a law pending in the state Senate that criminalizes the act of preventing someone from entering a health clinic.

Among those sitting on the sunny lawn listening to the festivities was Donald Thompson of West Los Angeles, who held his 22-month-old son, Gary, in his lap while his 6-year-old daughter, Cheryl, looked on.

“The idea that a group of people out there is trying to take it (the right to abortion) away from you . . . that’s upsetting,” said Thompson, 37. “It makes me angry.”

Earlier Saturday, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and several hundred anti-abortion activists were met by an equal number of abortion rights advocates outside a central Los Angeles clinic. The confrontation led to no arrests.

Police officers on foot and horseback separated the groups, which demonstrated for several hours outside the Family Planning Associates Medical Group on Westmoreland Avenue.

The anti-abortion activists, many of whom sat in prayer, did not block access to the clinic, which kept its doors open throughout the morning.

When the standoff ended, the anti-abortion group walked to MacArthur Park for a rally marking the end of a week of abortion protests around the state and nation. Other demonstrations were held Saturday in San Jose, Bakersfield, San Diego and Sacramento.

“Our mission today was not to physically halt people, but to pray for them because of what’s happening in the clinic,” Mahony said as he walked to the park. A contingent of abortion rights demonstrators followed him and jeered.

“The pro-life people were here in prayer,” Mahony said. “The other side seemed to be here for verbal violence and blasphemy.”