Women’s Center Phone Book Listing to Change : Reseda: Protesters have said yellow pages ad that appears to be for an abortion clinic is front for group that counsels women against procedure.

Pacific Bell officials said Monday that they will change their yellow pages listing for a women’s counseling center in Reseda that protesters charged is advertising as an abortion clinic while actually being a front for antiabortion activists.

The telephone number and advertisement for the Pregnancy Counseling Center will be moved from the “abortion services” listing to the “abortion alternatives organizations” listing in the Smart Yellow Pages book that will be published and distributed in May, directory officials said.

The move comes less than two weeks after 70 protesters demonstrated in front of the Sherman Way center as part of a statewide action by Operation Fraudbusters, a coalition of abortion rights groups targeting bogus “abortion clinics” that they say draw women in through fraudulent advertising and give them antiabortion counseling.

San Francisco-based Pacific Bell Directory officials said the Reseda counseling center’s listing will be moved with the approval of the center’s operators.

“It was mutual,” directory spokesman Sandy Kivowitz said. “Once we are aware that an advertiser is misplaced, we work with them.”

Kivowitz said the “abortion alternatives organizations” listing was created two years ago to provide a separate heading for agencies specializing in adoption services or antiabortion counseling.

Although leaders of the Jan. 11 demonstration took credit for forcing the switch, officials with the Right to Life League, which runs the Reseda center and 19 similar facilities in Southern California, said the change was unrelated to the protest.

“It’s a policy change,” said Teri Reisser, the league’s director of services. “We have been changing over. We used to advertise in the yellow pages anywhere we thought a woman might look. Now that there is this new category, we are more comfortable shifting over and that is our preference.”

Gail Hamilton, the Reseda center’s director, said she made the switch last week when she ordered a listing in the May edition of the yellow pages.

“I have no problem with going out of ‘abortion services,’ ” Hamilton said. “But we do technically deal with abortion here.”

Hamilton denied that the center deceives women.

“We tell people upfront” that the center does not perform abortions, Hamilton said. “We are here to help women who have a crisis pregnancy. Often there is a way to avoid an abortion.”

Joyce Schorr, one of the leaders of the demonstration and chairwoman of the National Council of Jewish Women/L.A., praised the listings switch.

Schorr said the placement of the center’s ad--which offers pregnancy testing, referrals and post-abortion counseling--under “abortion services” was a calculated attempt to mislead women.

“It was completely intentional,” Schorr said of the center’s listing. “This is a consumer fraud issue. Everything there is deliberately set up to look like a medical clinic, which they are not.”

Schorr also said she believes that the demonstration at the center forced the change in listings.

“I think it came as a result of the pickets,” she said. “They realized the writing was on the wall. They had to correct it.”

Janice Sinclaire, special assistant to State Controller Gray Davis, said the league’s decision to change listings was forced by the demonstration and other recent developments.

Davis’ office has been negotiating with yellow pages publishers to adopt guidelines regulating how such facilities advertise. Last fall, a House subcommittee on small business held hearings on deceptive advertising of abortion alternatives services.

The National Yellow Pages Publishers Assn. three months ago recommended policies for publishers to consider in order to avoid confusion between abortion services and alternative counseling. Sinclaire said the policy is that only facilities that actually perform abortions should be listed under abortion services.

“It’s a start,” Sinclaire said of the switch of the Reseda center’s listing. “I am encouraged. They are going to be moved. Unfortunately, it will take a while for the consumer to see that.”