Santa Clarita is a pretty homogenous place. We don’t see a lot of protests around here except during campaign season. That’s what made it surprising to me to see about 50-100 people lined up at all four corners of Lyons Ave & Orchard Village Road protesting abortion today.

As the tagline of this blog reads, I’m a pretty liberal guy. But abortion is one of those issues that makes even a liberal like me uneasy. I see the points from both sides of the debate and usually fall inline with the Clinton-era triangulation that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.”

So while I can understand why these folks are protesting, I’m a little confused about why they’re protesting here. Santa Clarita, after all, doesn’t offer any abortion services as far as I know (hell, we only have one hospital for 250,000 people), and I imagine if you polled residents, the town would be heavily pro-life. Isn’t protesting abortion in Newhall a little like preaching to the choir?

That question lead me on an internet search. I Googled “abortion santa clarita” and stumbled across this posted on Yahoo Answers:

I want to know if  the hospital [Henry Mayo] offers that service [abortion]
Due to the fact that my friend is 12 years old and pregnant.
I am not a troll, haha.
Sadly,
Im dead serious.
She got preggo from a 9th grader, she is in 6th grade.

So if someone could please help me, I am not old enough to drive,
and we can’t get parental consent from her mother.
Her mom is strongly religious,
and would want to kick her to the curb.

The guy is being a jerk and claims the baby isnt his,
even though he is the only possible father…

If someone could please help me,
as to talk him into the fact that he is the only father, and to help me make him understand that would be great too..

Also, how many weeks does someone have to be before abortion.

*Btw, I know she is really young, I am quite disappointed, and angry that she is pregnant at 12 myself, so please, no harsh comments.

Thankyou.

This was posted on Yahoo Answers nine months ago (I know, the irony) and there’s no way to tell if it’s true or false or whatnot. But is it plausible this could happen in Santa Clarita? Sure.

I imagine if I were in such a situation, I’d first turn to the internet too. I might even type “abortion santa clarita,” the first result of which is the Santa Clarita Valley Pregnancy Center, a group that’s been open here in town as long as I can remember.

The SCV Pregnancy website is a fairly straight-forward site that offers various services, counseling and information for young women scared about pregnancy. It even has a tab on abortion in which the Center offers ‘advice’ on abortions and whether they cause pain, side effects, and mentions possible “serious problems”  during abortion if the young woman has an STD. Overall, it advises young women to come in, get tested, and talk about the matter before they make a decision.

There’s nothing explicitly religious in nature on the main website, which is probably why the Center enjoys broad support throughout town, including over five pages of PDFs, links, calendar events, and more on the City of Santa Clarita’s website. Its leader, Angela Bennett, is chair of something called the SCV Nonprofit Leader’s Council and in media posts about the organization, it is described simply as a place nervous young women can go to receive counseling about their pregnancy.

However, if you go to LifeSupporter.org, a “Project of the SCV Pregnancy Center,” you’ll find a website that reveals the other mission of the SCV Pregnancy Center:

We reach out with compassion to families experiencing unplanned pregnancies and help them to consider life affirming alternatives to the devastation of abortion. In all aspects of the ministry, we encourage Biblical principles of living in a loving and non-judgemental (sic) environment. Our trained staff and volunteers offer encouragement, education and hope through Jesus Christ to those who receive ministry.

In other words, the SCV Pregnancy Center is a religious organization -a ministry even- though they’re not entirely up-front about it.

Despite the subterfuge, I believe the Center does good work. As the quote from Yahoo above reveals (whether it’s true or false is largely beside the point), an unplanned pregnancy is just about the most earth-shattering thing that can happen to a young girl, her family, and the father. At the very least the folks at the SCV Pregnancy Center know how to deal with that situation and the overwhelming sense of “crisis” it entails.

And if their work happens to persuade a young girl that there is a different and better path toward resolving her pregnancy, then I think that goes along way toward making abortion “rare.” And that’s something I can get behind. Even if they get a little preachy.

So while I”m not quite there holding a sign up with the protesters on Lyons, I’m almost there with them in spirit.