L.A. Abortion Clinics Wary in Wake of Shootings : Violence: Planned Parenthood officials and federal authorities are reviewing security after slayings in Massachusetts.

Trepidation and increased caution greeted the first day of the new work year at abortion clinics in Los Angeles on Tuesday as employees expressed concerns about last week’s killings at two Massachusetts clinics.

After reviewing security precautions, the operators of 10 Planned Parenthood clinics in the county said there is no immediate need for improvements but that workers had naturally grown more cautious about unfamiliar visitors after the shooting deaths Friday of two abortion clinic receptionists in Brookline, Mass.

“I think people are concerned and wary and certainly more observant about who comes and goes,” said Suellen Wood, executive director of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. “But we are determined that we are meeting a patient need and we are doing something legal and we will continue to do it.”

President Clinton issued an executive order Monday asking federal prosecutors and U.S. marshals around the nation to review clinic security measures, but the Los Angeles offices of both agencies declined to discuss security in detail.

Carole Levitzky, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, said the issue of clinic violence is a high priority and that the office would work with other law enforcement agencies to assure the safety of clinics’ patients.

Clinics and women’s health centers in the Los Angeles area have been subject to fewer protests in recent years--unlike clinics in Brookline and Pensacola, Fla., where protracted demonstrations preceded attacks on employees.

The last substantial local confrontation between anti-abortionists and abortion rights groups took place 3 1/2 years ago outside a clinic in South-Central Los Angeles.

Executives of Planned Parenthood Clinics said that despite the relative calm, they have prepared for confrontations by forming a group of 100 volunteer escorts who work for the Peaceful Protection Program. Many clinics also have guards and all have security doors that require visitors to be buzzed in before they can enter secure areas.

Scrutiny of visitors at the Sherman Oaks Planned Parenthood clinic increased Friday and Saturday. Walk-in patients were refused on those two days and others had to have their appointments confirmed before they were buzzed in the front door, according to one employee.

Although a heightened sense of the need for security continued, walk-in visits resumed this week at the clinic. “We are concerned but nobody is losing any sleep over it at this point,” said the employee, who asked not to be identified.

The leaders of several anti-abortion organizations were preparing to meet to discuss the impact of the Massachusetts murders. All condemned the violence, although one explained that he believed the shootings were an outgrowth of a government crackdown on clinic blockades and other anti-abortion protests.

“We absolutely condemn the actions of this man as the action of a mentally ill person acting of his own accord,” said Teri Reisser, executive director of the Right to Life League of Southern California. “An unborn child is a human being and in need of protection--we will never stop saying that. But that doesn’t translate into us taking responsibility for some nut case who goes out and starts shooting people.”

Susan Carpenter-McMillan, a conservative commentator who is active in the anti-abortion movement, said she hoped all mainstream groups will soon have a news conference to condemn the attacks on abortion clinics.

“We find ourselves being in the very awkward position of defending those we so deplore--the abortionists and any of their employees or providers,” she said. “It’s a real twist of fate. . . . But we are absolutely outraged” by the shootings.

Most of the anti-abortion activists said they do not believe that Southern California has the kind of virulent adherents that have defended clinic killings as justifiable homicide in the defense of unborn children.

But at least some of the activists said they think the violence is the outgrowth of new laws and tough jail sentences that have effectively blocked clinic blockades and other forms of protest.

“Now people are frustrated and we have violence breaking out all over,” said Jeff White, state director of Operation Rescue. “This is just the tip of the iceberg and I know, because I spend a lot of time trying to convince people that violence is not the answer.”