Backlash in Beverly Hills

When DuPont Clinic, a slickly operated Washington, D.C.–based late-term abortion facility, decided to expand into Beverly Hills, California, it had little reason to expect opposition. Indeed, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Beverly Hills City Hall lit up pink in protest. City officials unanimously passed a resolution supporting abortion. And months later, California voters passed Proposition 1, enshrining abortion rights into the state constitution.

So when DuPont’s owners announced its new Beverly Hills location on its social media channels in October 2022, they had every reason to expect the city to roll out the red carpet.

But DuPont didn’t count on Tim Clement.

At the time, the 51-year-old Oxnard, Calif., surfer was a newly minted outreach director for the California-based pro-life group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. To some, he seems intimidating, his co-worker told me. The horseshoe mustache. The hair slicked back in a ponytail. But the former rescue mission chaplain and counselor is actually intuitive and mellow, preferring jeans and Vans sneakers, even with a shirt and tie. In the spring and summer of 2023, Clement donned that uniform as he became a familiar—and, to many, unwelcome—face across Beverly Hills, one that infuriates DuPont and pro-abortion activists to this day.

AT FIRST, no one in Beverly Hills seemed to care that a late-term abortion center was preparing to set up shop in the middle of town, Clement said. This, despite DuPont’s declaring in black-and-white its willingness to kill babies at any stage of pregnancy. In a social media post announcing its plan to expand in California, DuPont claimed, “The need for all-trimester abortion has never been greater.”

By the spring of 2023, Clement was sounding the alarm. He was also committed: He moved down from Oxnard into a Los Angeles–area Airbnb with eight other pro-life activists. This small band showed up at two City Council meetings. They held smoke bombs on a freeway overpass with a giant banner that read, “Stop DuPont 3rd Trimester Abortions.” They attended community events, including a concert in the park, handing out hundreds of informational postcards. Other activists wrote letters to city officials and the building manager and started a Stop DuPont website and petition. Almost daily, Emma Craig, 38, media coordinator for Survivors, stood outside the Beverly Hills Medical Center with about five or 10 others holding signs and spreading the word through a megaphone.

The noise caught the attention of Beverly Hills residents, law enforcement, city officials—and the medical center’s landlord, Douglas Emmett.

The Survivors campaign culminated at a Saturday afternoon rally in late July last year. Hundreds of pro-lifers clogged a block of palm-tree-lined Wilshire Boulevard, where the Beverly Hills Medical Center is situated just a mile from the crown jewel of American luxury shopping, Rodeo Drive. Clement stepped up to the microphone on a portable stage. Piano music played softly as he described the coordinated, Marine Corps-style “boots on the ground” offensive against DuPont that led to a meeting with the mayor and an email he had received two days prior from Beverly Hills’ deputy city manager:

“Per our conversation … this email is to confirm that the attorney for the landlord at 8920 Wilshire Boulevard has notified the city that the DuPont Clinic will no longer be taking occupancy and the lease has been rescinded.”

The crowd erupted in cheers. Craig, a public high school teacher from Vallejo, Calif., stood at the back to keep people from spilling off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic. Like everyone else, she “went ballistic.” Tears streamed down her face, even though she had already heard the news. Over the noise, another pro-life activist grabbed the mic. “This has turned into a praise service because we shut [DuPont] down!” he declared.

Now, though, the battle in Beverly Hills is far from over. And the legal fight between DuPont, the building manager, and city officials promises to test the limits of California’s abortion crusade.

Months after the July 2023 rally, DuPont filed separate lawsuits against city officials and Douglas Emmett, claiming they “colluded and conspired with protestors to try to drive DuPont out of the City.” The state attorney general is also reviewing the city’s actions.

In recent statements the city has denied DuPont’s allegations and reiterated “strongly supporting a person’s right to choose.” A Beverly Hills spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

In May, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered the city to turn over an extensive list of communication records involving DuPont. It has already provided 3,000 pages of documents. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 18.

CALIFORNIA LAW permits abortion up to the point when the unborn baby is deemed “viable”—or able to survive a delivery—between 24 and 26 weeks into pregnancy. After that, abortion is allowed only if a physician determines that continuing the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother’s life or health.

When California voters passed Proposition 1, critics warned its vague wording would override existing viability limits—and open the door for third-­trimester abortions. The law prohibits the state from “denying or interfering” with the “fundamental right to choose” an abortion. Pratima Gupta, a San Diego abortionist and OB-GYN involved in drafting the law, told KQED that the term “viability” was intentionally left out of Proposition 1. “Every pregnancy is individual and it’s a continuum,” she said.

DuPont intends to stretch that already plastic boundary. The center currently advertises “abortions after 26 weeks” and assistance with financial and travel arrangements. A version of its website in May 2023 advertised abortion up to 31 weeks, 6 days. In its 2022 budget, California awarded DuPont a nearly $150,000 grant for “physical and digital infrastructure security.” California also approved $25 million in funding for abortion services and programs in Los Angeles County. All this amid Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to turn the state into a legal “sanctuary” for abortions.

“It’s no surprise that DuPont was blowing the trumpet that they were coming to California,” said attorney John Gerardi, executive director of Right to Life of Central California.

Only six states and the District of Columbia now allow abortions with no gestational limitations. About 1 percent of U.S. abortions—about 10,000 annually—occur in the third trimester, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least half of DuPont’s D.C. patients come from more than 100 miles away, its founder, abortionist Matthew Reeves, told The Nation.

A May 2023 version of DuPont’s website described a three-day abortion process involving “light to mild cramping” and a procedure taking “15 minutes or less” that ends the life of the unborn baby. At 27 weeks, a baby is the size of a head of lettuce, has hiccups and taste buds, and distinguishes voices.

SURVIVORS OF the Abortion Holocaust has increasingly focused on fighting late-term abortion and fetal organ harvesting, Emma Craig told me. The group has attracted criticism, including from some pro-life groups, for its use of graphic abortion imagery and other confrontational tactics. Critics also balk at its using the word “Holocaust” in its name. Survivors states on its website that the term signifies the millions of unborn babies aborted in the name of “choice” since Roe v. Wade.

In Beverly Hills, Clement drove around town in what he called “the truth truck”—equipped with a large LED screen portraying graphic images of aborted third-trimester babies. That prompted screaming threats from one law enforcement official, he said. A reel on Survivors’ Instagram account shows Craig with a megaphone outside high-end shops on Rodeo Drive in what Survivors calls a “die in.” A handful of activists, including Clement, are sprawled on the street, draped in red cloth, to represent aborted children.

“There has never been an abortion clinic of this kind in California, ever,” Craig told passersby.

Dozens of abortion facilities operate within miles of Beverly Hills, according to abortionfinder.org. One even operates in the same medical center where DuPont planned to lease. But none provide late-term abortions.

“Even though Beverly Hills leans liberal, it’s a family-oriented community,” Craig said. “They might be OK with first-term abortion but … the general public actually thinks [late-term abortion] is pretty barbaric, even Democrats.”

Even in staunchly pro-abortion California, only 13 percent believe abortion should be legal at any time during pregnancy up to the moment of birth, a 2022 Rasmussen survey found.

AS BACKLASH mounted in Beverly Hills, the city delayed issuing DuPont’s building permits for months, according to the lawsuit. DuPont described it as “a shocking concession to these protestors.” But communications cited in the lawsuit show the city put its permits on hold to ensure the facility’s proposed use did not violate any state laws.

In May 2023, the city acquiesced and granted DuPont its permits. Still, in an email to DuPont a month later, an attorney for building manager Douglas Emmett said the abortion facility failed to disclose it would be providing “for abnormal and high-risk pregnancies including what are commonly referred to as late-term abortions.” It also said DuPont neglected to reveal its D.C. ­facility had been the focus of “ongoing protests and disturbances.”

Weeks later, the city informed the pro-life activists the abortion center would not open after all.

And then, a pro-abortion counter­offensive. Earlier this year, brightly ­colored billboards sponsored by local and national abortion groups appeared at busy inter­sections. “Los Angeles should be SAFE for abortion seekers. Fight back against attempts to shut down DuPont Clinic,” they declared. A social media campaign dubbed Beverly Hills for Choice started urging abortion supporters to attend City Council meetings—and they have, in force. The group has demanded an investigation into an “alleged conspiracy” between city officials and “anti-choice extremists.”

Neither DuPont Clinic nor Douglas Emmett responded to my email and phone requests for comment.

After last year’s late-July rally, Clement, Craig, and other pro-life activists packed up and headed home. In the past two years, DuPont is one of three abortion facilities in California that failed to open due to local opposition, CalMatters reported.

In a state where fighting for unborn lives often feels like a losing battle, Clement considers Beverly Hills a huge victory. But he believes Round 2 is coming. And as the Beverly Hills drama continues to unfold, Clement worries other cities and landlords in California or elsewhere may be less inclined to push back against abortion expansion.

Late-term abortionists are “trying to get a foothold into California,” he said. “They’re trying to create this narrative now … sending a message to the rest of the state that, ‘If you mess with us, or if you go against us, you will get sued.’”

Clement says those scare tactics twist what actually happened: “We just exposed what they were doing.”