Security Is Stringent at Clinic’s Opening : Safety: Planned Parenthood employees cautious as Lawndale office opens amid picketing. Abortions are not performed there.

A security camera is poised above the front door of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles’ new clinic in Lawndale, allowing the staff to inspect visitors before they are permitted to enter.

Last Monday, (10-18) the clinic’s opening day, a Planned Parenthood employee toting a walkie-talkie screened those entering the pink, stucco building as dozens of abortion rights opponents milled around her.

This is 1990s-style clinic security, a response to fires, bombings and other violence at abortion clinics and family-planning offices nationwide.

Abortions are not even performed at this clinic. No matter. In a display of heightened tensions in the abortion debate, the ceiling camera is still scrutinizing visitors--and the anti-abortion placards are bristling on the sidewalk outside.

Planned Parenthood officials, who had canceled plans to provide abortions at their 11th and newest clinic in the Southland, say they are taking no chances.

Just two weeks ago, a firebomb tossed through a rear window damaged a Planned Parenthood clinic in Lancaster, Pa., that did not provide abortions. In all, three women’s health clinics nationwide were damaged in probable arson attacks in 10 days in late September.

“We have every reason to be cautious,” said Josie Corning, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. “All over the country, clinic personnel are being followed home and shrieked at and threatened at their homes. We’re just trying to be prepared.”

Lynne Abraham, vice president for communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York City, was dismayed at the need for stepped-up security at medical offices.

“This is where you go for peace and quiet and health. To operate in what in some cases is a quasi-war zone is unacceptable,” Abraham said. The cost of such security, she added, can divert much-needed funds from medical services.

Anti-abortion leader Jeff White, director of Operation Rescue of California, contrasted the current mood to six years ago, when, he said, a woman could simply walk into many abortion clinics unencumbered by security measures.

“There’s a change happening; I see that as positive,” White said. “It’s no longer a simple matter of going down and killing a child.”

J.T. Finn, director of the South Bay Pro-Life Coalition, dismissed Planned Parenthood’s precautions as overreaction.

“Their measures are overkill, and are an indication that they will go to any measure to protect their very lucrative business of promoting and providing child-killing services,” said Finn, who stressed that his group believes in peaceful actions.

Some abortion rights opponents remain so convinced that the Lawndale clinic will turn into a so-called “abortion mill” that on Monday about 50 protesters lined the curb outside the Hawthorne Boulevard clinic, hoisting anti-abortion signs.

Dramatizing the mood of deep suspicion, a man and a woman silently crisscrossed the sidewalk, toting video cameras on their shoulders. One was taping the protest for the benefit of abortion foes, the other for abortion rights advocates.

Tensions have been building ever since Planned Parenthood announced nearly three years ago that it planned to open its first South Bay clinic.

Planned Parenthood said then that the clinic would offer abortions, but two weeks ago agency officials disclosed they would focus on “core services,” such as contraception, before deciding whether to offer abortions at the clinic. Although the agency denied it was giving in to anti-abortion lobbying, South Bay abortion foes declared victory.

Other services to be offered at the clinic include pregnancy testing and counseling, adoption referrals, breast and cervical cancer screening, premarital blood testing and the detection and treatment of most sexually transmitted diseases.

About 30 patients are scheduled to be seen this week, according to agency officials. They declined to specify what day the patient visits would start.

They also would not detail the protective measures at the clinic, although they called security state of the art. Women’s health clinics nationwide have adopted more stringent security measures in recent years, with some installing bulletproof glass in reception areas and coating windows with a fire-deterring glaze.

Four of the 11 Planned Parenthood clinics in the region now have security cameras. Three of the 11 offer abortions.

Amid escalating anti-abortion protests, Planned Parenthood decided in 1988 to adopt more sophisticated security, a decision that tripled security costs, Corning said.

On Monday, clinic staff watched the protest through large windows installed with one-way glass. In place before Planned Parenthood rented the office, the glass is a convenient means of preserving privacy, officials said.

Abortion rights opponents say their efforts may go beyond the clinic and sidewalk outside.

Operation Rescue plans to research where clinic workers live and to picket them at their homes as part of its “No Place to Hide” campaign, White said.

“We believe the truth is going to win the battle, not violence,” he said.