Anti-abortion protesters, abortion rights advocates gather at Planned Parenthood office

Anti-abortion protesters and abortion rights advocates clashed verbally yet peacefully Saturday morning outside the Planned Parenthood office in Northeast Portland. The Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette office at 3727 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd....

Anti-abortion protesters, abortion rights advocates gather at Planned Parenthood office

Anti-abortion protesters and abortion rights advocates clashed verbally yet peacefully Saturday morning outside the Planned Parenthood office in Northeast Portland.

The Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette office at 3727 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. was the site of one of 224 "Defund Planned Parenthood" demonstrations in 45 states that were planned to take place Saturday.

Organizers of the Portland event set up a table and loudspeakers for a series of speeches near the doorway of the building at the northwest corner of Northeast Beech Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The Defund Planned Parenthood participants formed a semicircle near the speakers. Abortion rights advocates stood on the periphery. Perhaps a total of 250 people were at the event when it started at 10 a.m. It was scheduled to end at 11:30 a.m.

Both sides held posters expressing their viewpoints, often standing side by side and sometimes shouting slogans. Elsewhere, people with differing points of view on the subject talked to each other.

Two Portland police officers walked among the crowd. When someone suggested at about 10:30 a.m. that the crowd had been peaceful, the officers nodded.

-- Mike Zacchino contributed reporting.

--Allan Brettman

abrettman@oregonian.com

503-294-5900

@allanbrettman

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