NATION : 1,000 Pro-Choice Protests Set

WASHINGTON — Supporters of abortion rights announced plans today for 1,000 demonstrations in 150 cities Nov. 12, which will begin with a “thousand points of light” sunrise service near President Bush’s vacation home and be highlighted by a massive rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

“This is the most single ambitious human rights activity ever taken in the United States,” Eleanor Smeal, president of the Fund for the Feminist Majority, told a news conference held to publicize the event.

“Never before have so many groups come and converged on so many points yet also had a massive demonstration, which we think will hit record proportions in Washington itself,” Smeal said.

Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, which organized the coalition of groups staging the protests, said the events would kick off a campaign to elect state legislators in 1990 favoring a woman’s right to choose an abortion.