Doctor Seeks to Bar Abortion Foes at Van Nuys Clinic

A doctor sought a court order Wednesday barring anti-abortion protesters from demonstrating outside his Van Nuys clinic where he says they have harassed patients and attempted to burn the building, his attorneys said.

Gordon Goei, who operates the Clinica Medica Para La Mujer International, in the 6900 block of Van Nuys Boulevard, filed the complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court, said Gail Greenberg, one of Goei’s attorneys.

Filing a complaint is a necessary step toward obtaining a restraining order against the protesters.

The clinic, at which abortions are performed and basic health care provided, has been the focus of anti-abortion protests for more than a year, as demonstrators have gathered there on Tuesday nights, Friday afternoons and Saturday and Sunday mornings, according to the court document.

Recently, however, the protesters have become more confrontational and a series of increasingly violent attacks has endangered the lives of its clients and employees as well as workers in other offices in the complex where the clinic is housed, the complaint states.

In October, according to the complaint, a demonstrator grabbed a patient’s child by the arm outside the clinic and shouted: “Your mother is in there where they kill babies. They’re killing your mother’s baby and they’re going to kill her too.”

On Nov. 3, after the clinic had received a bomb threat earlier in the day, a protester broke a clinic window, poured in acid, and set the building afire, the complaint charges.

The clinic, however, was not seriously damaged and has remained open, said attorney Rebecca Edelson, who also represents Goei.

Other alleged incidents cited in the complaint include death threats made against a former clinic doctor and protesters who delayed a woman--who was not a clinic patient--from being taken by paramedics to a hospital.

The complaint also claims that police have not attempted to disperse the demonstrators.

“The police have sided with the defendants on some occasions and attempted to convince the clinic’s clients to seek alternatives to abortion,” according to the document.

Goei seeks a court order forcing the protesters to stop confronting clients and passersby outside the clinic or being within 60 feet of clinic property.