1,000 Join Rally Against Abortion

Casey Mach endured jeers and an occasional obscenity Sunday afternoon while doing her part for National Life Chain Sunday, an anti-abortion rally held near the Ventura County Government Center.

But when you believe in your cause, she said, the occasional rejection is nothing compared to the overwhelming sensation of standing up for your beliefs.

“I am out here for my cause,” said the 25-year-old Oxnard resident. “I am pro-life.”

Holding a sign that read “Abortion Kills Children,” Mach stood on the corner of Victoria Avenue and Ralston Street for 90 minutes hoping to get her point across.

“I got some thumbs up, some thumbs down and some middle fingers,” she said. “But I also got some horns honking. It’s very encouraging.”

Mach and about 1,000 other church-goers from across western Ventura County lined both sides of Victoria Avenue and Telephone Road for several blocks beginning at 2 p.m. to take part in a peaceful protest against abortion.

The so-called “Life Chain” dates to 1987, when members of an anti-abortion ministry in Yuba City, north of Sacramento, organized 2,500 people in a similar abortion protest.

Organizers of Sunday’s Life Chain in Ventura said 1997 marks the second straight year the event has taken place locally, following a four-year hiatus.

The first Life Chain in the city occurred in 1988, and continued annually through 1992.

This year’s event drew members of 39 local churches, according to Ventura resident Lou Blais, who along with his wife, Lynda, organized the event in this area, which stretched from Moon Drive to the Santa Paula Freeway along Victoria Avenue, and from Saratoga Avenue to Partridge Drive along Telephone Road.

“Of course the route forms a cross, which they all like,” Blais said.

Placards in English as well as Spanish praised adoption as an option for unplanned pregnancies, and railed against the taking of an unborn life.

“I am out here because of the women’s-libbers that want to say at conception it is not a life,” said Sonja Manzer, 60, of Camarillo.

Ventura police officials said the demonstrators were peaceful and there were no incidents or arrests.