Planned Parenthood Clinic Draws Abortion Protesters

The first Planned Parenthood clinic in Orange County to offer abortion services opened this week amid unusually tight security, with chanting protesters demonstrating outside and nervous workers tending to patients inside.

Although violence against abortion clinics is rare, the bombings, shootings and other attacks that have occurred across the country in recent years have heightened concerns among the 37 employees at the Orange office.

The clinic opened Monday morning to throngs of protesters and police, who faced off on the freshly paved parking lot. About 40 anti-abortion activists stood on the sidewalk and shouted their message under an afternoon sun so hot it curled the corners of their 6-foot-tall photographs of aborted fetuses.

The newest clinic on Tustin Avenue was chosen largely because it was “defensible,” with secured underground parking for doctors and a 7-foot-tall block wall that prevents protesters from “sidewalk counseling” patients, officials said. The clinic includes thick metal doors as well as cameras that photograph everyone who enters.