Planned Parenthood targeted by SD protesters

A crowd of some 200 anti-abortion activists demonstrated outside the offices of Planned Parenthood in San Diego on Saturday morning, calling for the elimination of federal funding to the nonprofit health care organization.

The protest near downtown was one of 320 similar gatherings staged outside Planned Parenthood offices across the country, according to organizers. In San Diego, protesters lined the sidewalks at the corner of First Avenue and Grape Street, chanting and holding signs.

“Planned Parenthood Harvests Baby Parts for Profit,” read one poster. “Abortion kills children,” read another.

A similar protest in Escondido also drew about 200 participants Saturday, according to police, while another rally of about 100 people was staged in Vista.

The demonstrations followed the release in recent weeks of videos shot secretly by abortion opponents showing Planned Parenthood employees discussing the extraction of fetal tissue from aborted fetuses for the purposes of research. Abortion opponents claim that Planned Parenthood intended to profit from the transaction, an allegation denied by Planned Parenthood executives, who say the video was edited to offer a distorted picture.

“These false claims are being used to advance a political agenda to ban abortion and to defund Planned Parenthood,” read a response from Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, which serves San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties. The organization is the largest provider of reproductive health services in the United States and says that abortion accounts for 3 percent of its services.

Saturday’s peaceful rally in San Diego drew a range of participants, including students from local colleges, as well as members of church groups from around the county. Several protesters brought children and infants.

Ann Burdette, 56, from Pomona, arrived with family members from Santee. “No American should have their tax dollars spent funding them,” Burdette said of Planned Parenthood. “What they’re doing is an atrocity.”

Also in the crowd were a handful of abortion rights advocates holding signs in support of Planned Parenthood. Jessica Hohler, a 25-year-old Point Loma resident, said she came to support women’s rights. “How can someone dictate what a person can do with her body?”

Hohler spent a few minutes discussing the issue with Kevin Kramer, a 31-year-old claims adjuster from North Park who opposes abortion. “It’s either a human being from the moment of conception or it’s not,” he said. “The whole argument falls on that.”

sandra.dibble@utsandiego.com (619) 293-1716 Twitter: @sandradibble