Family Planning Clinic

The San Gabriel Valley Chapter of the National Organization for Women is requesting police escorts for workers and patients at a family planning clinic where anti-abortion activists demonstrate. Local NOW President Darby Mangen said people entering the clinic in the 11000 block of the Valley Mall may be in a position of "unprotected jeopardy" from protesters. In a letter to Police Chief Wayne Clayton, she described the clinic as an "easy target" for those who may seek to commit terrorist acts.

We're careful about what we call an accident in my house. When my son breaks a windowpane playing soccer in the living room, it's no accident. When my daughter destroys the finish on the coffee table removing polish from her nails, again, no accident. Most people throw the term "accident" around more loosely, however. They use it to describe everything from spilled milk to car crashes ? including unintended pregnancies. More than one-third of all pregnancies in the United States are mistimed or unwanted, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A physician was prevented from opening his East Los Angeles family planning clinic and a janitor was trapped in the building for more than seven hours Saturday by about 100 Operation Rescue members who blockaded the entrances. The anti-abortion protesters held up posters, sang and prayed in front of the American Best Family Planning Clinic at 4055 Whittier Blvd. from 8 a.m. until they were dispersed by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies shortly after 3 p.m.

A Granada Hills office manager who ran six family planning clinics across Southern California was sentenced to three years and four months in prison Friday for performing abortions on women, some of whom were not given pain medication during the procedures. Bertha Pinedo Bugarin, 49, who has no medical license, sobbed uncontrollably as she told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta that she felt deep remorse for what she had done and begged the court's forgiveness.

Police and fire officials suspect arson in a fire in the lobby area of a family planning clinic in Newport Beach early Wednesday. A flammable liquid was found at the front door of Family Planning Associates, 4501 Birch St., where a fire alarm sounded at 1:35 a.m., Fire Capt. Ray Pendleton said. Damage, estimated to be $9,000, was confined to the lobby area. The clinic was closed at that hour and there were no injuries. Police are seeking suspects and a motive in the case, Sgt. Andy Gonis said.

Last year, a councilman tried without success to close down a family planning clinic that performs abortions. Now residents near the clinic want to do the same thing, but for different reasons. Some residents on North A Street, around the corner from the clinic, want the clinic closed because the demonstrations there disrupt their neighborhood, making parking difficult and prompting police, on occasion, to close their street.

Citing strong opposition, a San Fernando Valley clinic pulled out of a fledgling community outreach center Friday that had planned to offer birth-control counseling and gynecological services after school hours at a Burbank elementary school. "No one who needed the help got it, which is really a shame," said Diane Chamberlain, associate director of the Valley Community Clinic, the North Hollywood-based group that set up the satellite clinic at McKinley Elementary School two weeks ago.

The public interest law firm that successfully challenged Gov. George Deukmejian's decision to slash funding to the state's family planning clinics now faces a cut in its own funding, a move that the law firm contends is "political retaliation." California Rural Legal Assistance recently received a letter from a federal agency announcing that it intends to reduce the poverty law firm's funding by up to $450,000. The federal Legal Services Corp.

In a decade that saw the emergence of AIDS, reduced access to abortion and a rise in unintended childbearing, public funding for family planning dropped by one-third in inflation-adjusted dollars during the 1980s, a new study has found. The study, released Thursday, documents for the first time the decade-long decline in support for clinics relied upon by millions of U.S. women.

The Supreme Court agreed today to review federal regulations that bar government-financed family-planning clinics from counseling about abortion. Critics of the regulations, issued by the Reagan Administration in 1988, allege that they violate free speech and abortion rights. At stake is the future scope of a federal program with a $200-million yearly budget. The program funds more than 4,000 clinics serving about 5 million low-income women nationwide.

Rejecting arguments by abortion opponents and three of its elected members, the Ventura City Council has voted to join a Santa Barbara legal fight to reinstate protections to women entering family planning clinics. The 4-3 decision, which came Monday just before midnight, directs the Ventura city attorney to file a brief in support of the Santa Barbara City Council's appeal of a federal court ruling declaring a law it passed two years ago unconstitutional. Filing the brief with the U.S.

Orange Coast College's Original Play Festival took me by surprise. I'd hoped it would expose me to the work of young college playwrights. Instead, I discovered the Dave Barton Showcase. At 34, Barton does not qualify as a young college playwright, but he is in college, and he is writing plays. And of the five works in the festival, he has written four. So here goes. His pieces mean well. The first runs eight minutes or so. It's a sketch called "+/-."

Walk into a typical family planning clinic, and the last thing you're likely to see is a man--unless he's the doctor, or the guy sweeping the floor. The reason? Men don't like to talk about birth control and they certainly don't like to practice it, say many women attending the International Conference for Population and Development here. "My husband says he feels like he's being strangled," a young Egyptian woman whispered when talk turned to condoms.

Years ago, when the water buffalo gave plenty of milk and the pigeons and chickens were paraded nightly to the dinner table, Om Mahmoud was healthy and happy with the annual ritual of giving birth to a new baby: another pair of hands in the lush farm fields of the Nile Delta. But the babies kept dying, one by one. Om Mahmoud would have a new baby, and last year's infant would die. In all, she went to the birthing table 15 times. Seven lived.

Citing strong opposition, a San Fernando Valley clinic pulled out of a fledgling community outreach center Friday that had planned to offer birth-control counseling and gynecological services after school hours at a Burbank elementary school. "No one who needed the help got it, which is really a shame," said Diane Chamberlain, associate director of the Valley Community Clinic, the North Hollywood-based group that set up the satellite clinic at McKinley Elementary School two weeks ago.

The map on the wall of Planned Parenthood's Los Angeles headquarters speaks legions about a city wary of confronting what may be the most racially charged subject of all: who tells whom what about having babies. Eleven red dots that denote existing family planning clinics punctuate the coast, the San Fernando Valley and parts of central and eastern Los Angeles County.

An Alhambra judge Thursday chastised Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner for publicly announcing that he will seek 30-day jail sentences for five anti-abortion protesters convicted last month of trespassing at a Rosemead family planning clinic. Municipal Judge Carlos A. Uranga then ordered three of the defendants to serve the equivalent of five days in County Jail.

I thought that reporters were supposed to be dispassionate and fair. The article "Tustin Denies 2 Anti-Abortion Bids" (April 4) states that "thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators . . . and large numbers of pro-choice demonstrators went head-to-head at family planning clinics across the Southland." In fact, the anti-abortionists were not able to muster more than 500 people on weekdays or 800 on the weekend. Pro-choice people (defending 90 clinics and having to disperse their people over a wide area)