Abortion Opponents Hold Vigils : Demonstration: The actions are prompted in part by President’s lifting of key restrictions. A silent counterprotest is also held.

With heads bowed and hands gripping rosary beads, several dozen antiabortion activists from across Ventura County held a 1 1/2-hour prayer vigil outside a Ventura clinic Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of abortion’s legalization in the United States.

The activists at the morning vigil and at a later rally at the County Government Center said they were mourning not only the abortions performed since the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, but also President Clinton’s sweeping executive orders Friday that lifted key abortion restrictions.

“It’s a really sad day for the nation as a whole,” said Ronald Lawson, 29, a Ventura resident active in the antiabortion movement.

“He needs to be impeached,” said Camarillo resident Fran Glover, 68, who joined the morning vigil outside the Family Planning Associates Medical Group building on Thompson Boulevard, a clinic where abortions are performed.

Two days after taking office, Clinton signed executive orders that overturned the so-called gag rule restricting abortion counseling at 4,000 federally funded family planning clinics, ended a ban on fetal tissue research and loosened other restrictions on abortion and contraceptives.

While the actions were a cause for grief for local antiabortion activists, they brought relief among the 20 abortion-rights advocates who staged a silent counterprotest to Saturday morning’s vigil.

“I keep saying ‘It’s the light at the end of the tunnel,’ ” said Edith Russakoff, a 55-year-old Oxnard resident. But “I’m afraid to think it. I’ve been depressed for so long” over the antiabortion movement’s string of victories under the past two Republican administrations.

A mother of two children, Russakoff said she protests regularly for abortion rights alongside members of the Ventura-Oxnard Chapter of the National Organization for Women and other groups.

“My girlfriend almost died in Tijuana from a botched abortion” in the 1950s, Russakoff said. “That was when they were illegal. That’s why I’m here. And I’m here for my daughter so she won’t have to go through that.”

Although the clinic was open Saturday, no patients or employees entered through the building’s front door during the prayers and protests. The scene remained peaceful and police were not called to intervene.

As the antiabortion activists knelt, sat or stood on the sidewalk, saying prayers and singing hymns, their opponents stood silently behind them holding brightly colored signs with slogans such as “Hitler Was Pro-Life Too” and “Abort Operation Rescue Now.”

The vigil was sponsored by a Roman Catholic organization called Helpers of God’s Precious Infants.

Another prayer session held later at the Ventura County Government Center was organized by a small, local group called Veterans for Life. It attracted about 70 supporters.

Although both antiabortion protests Saturday were dominated by prayer, activists at the events said they will continue to take measures on behalf of their cause, such as blockading abortion clinics.

The new Democratic Administration’s support for abortion rights might serve to renew antiabortion groups’ activism, Lawson said.

Over time, he said, “We’ll see it really is up to the individual rather than the government to change things.”

But local abortion-rights supporters also said they plan to be equally vigilant at preserving options for women.

“We can’t afford to lose ground now,” said Pat Angerman of Ventura.