More than 30 anti-abortion activists picketed the district offices of Assemblymen Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach) and Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) on Monday to protest the legislators’ acceptance of campaign contributions from Los Alamitos Race Course in Cypress, whose majority owner also owns abortion clinics.
“It’s inconceivable that an assemblyman who calls himself pro-life could take money from one of the nation’s leading independent abortion providers,” said Jeff White, spokesman for Operation Rescue West. “It’s tantamount to Jesse Jackson taking money from the Ku Klux Klan.”
Opponents of abortion at Operation Rescue have been miffed for more than a year at Baugh and Pringle for accepting campaign contributions from the race course. The track’s majority owner is Dr. Edward Allred, who also established Family Planning Associates Medical Group, the largest abortion provider in the state.
Baugh said he has always been staunchly anti-abortion and only accepted the campaign money because the racetrack is in his district.
“It’s like Ronald Reagan always said: ‘They support me, I don’t support them,’ ” Baugh said. “The racetrack and its owner support me and my policies. I do not support abortion in any form.”
The protesters, most of whom were members of an Operation Rescue teen group called Survivors, stood at Beach Boulevard and Edinger Avenue in Huntington Beach, holding large signs with enlarged photos of aborted fetuses and received an occasional honk from passing motorists.
They gathered in a circle to pray before entering Baugh’s office, where they made an appointment to meet with him later this month.
The protesters also gathered for about 90 minutes at Pringle’s office in Garden Grove. They set up a meeting for later this month with Pringle to discuss their concerns, said Joel Angeles, Pringle’s district director.
“They were quiet and very peaceful,” he said.