About a year ago a new Planned Parenthood of America (PPA) clinic moved into the neighborhood. We first noticed it on the way to Mass at our Inglewood, California, parish, St. John Chrysostom. The clinic, fairly large and with bold signage, is in a busy strip mall. Why not? The clinic keeps busy enough and comes with its own designated parking spots.

Still, things could be worse. The clinic isn’t so busy as the deluxe ice cream shop next door to it. And it’s not nearly so busy as the drive-thru Starbucks in the middle of the mall. Unlike the ice cream shop or Starbucks, the clinic has security doors. Clients need to be “beeped in.” PPA discourages Red Rose Rescue visits. But the clinic has its own “smiley face” sign at the main entrance: “Care No Matter What.” That is, care if your parents cared enough not to have you killed.

As a thriving business, the local PPA has its own Community Center upstairs from the clinic. All the better to bring its sex education expertise to local young people. Outreach is important, isn’t it? Just across the street there’s a private elementary school. Its logo says, “Building the Future.” As they say, it’s “location, location, location.” How frightfully convenient.

In keeping with pharmaceutical advances, the clinic offers “medication abortion” (up to 11 weeks). It does not offer on-site surgical abortions. But it does have ready referrals for clients who need that “service” in order to have their preborn babies destroyed. Nationwide, the numbers are going up.

Recognizing the need to guarantee clinic access, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has voted 5-0 to write a draft ordinance establishing a free speech “buffer zone” around places of worship, hospitals, schools, and health care clinics — read abortion facilities — in the unincorporated areas of the county. That is, access to abortion facilities with lots of distracting verbiage about worthy institutions. The buffer zone would ban anyone from obstructing or blocking another person from entering or exiting these facilities, while also prohibiting anyone who is handing out leaflets, displaying signs, offering counseling, or other information from getting within eight feet of someone entering or exiting, unless that person consents. That eight-foot barrier would be in effect within a 100-foot radius outside the facility.

“Los Angeles County has a responsibility to ensure our community members can safely receive medical care, practice their faith or access their schools,” said Board of Supervisors Chair Lindsey Horvath, who authored the motion. There is, of course, no such thing as a safe abortion. The ballyhooed buffer zone has not yet been established, and there will be legal hurdles to face even if it is. Plus, the PPA clinic is in Inglewood, an independent city.

So once a month, as an aging prayer warrior, I go to the clinic to recite the Rosary, always choosing the sorrowful mysteries. A few times I’ve been joined by parish women from the Catholic Daughters of America. Back and forth I walk along the extended and secured front of the clinic. So far there’s been no interest from the police. Some weeks ago I suggested to the young security guard that he surely could find a better job. I haven’t seen him since. And some weeks ago an older woman, with a look of severity, asked me, “Are you finished now”? No, I wasn’t finished yet. Truth be told, I don’t plan on finishing until this place closes down. Yes, it’s comfortably settled in for now. But it needs to be prayed away permanently.