Here are some of the more than 5,000 supporters of Planned Parenthood who turned out in St. Paul Saturday to counter the protest of forced-birthers who seek to defund the women's health organization.

Forced-birthers across the nation participated in more than 200 protests against Planned Parenthood Saturday organized by the #ProtestPP Coalition. Their purpose: To show support for the latest effort in Congress to defund the organization.

In several cases, counter-protesters showed up. No more so than in St. Paul, Minnesota. There, the defunding backers numbered about 500 at their peak, according to police. But at least 10 times as many counter-protesters in support of Planned Parenthood showed up. The two protests were occasionally loud but peaceful.

x View from the roof. Thousands of PP supporters. End of the video shows Defund PP crowd on right, which has thinned out significantly. pic.twitter.com/8SPndnPaDD — Miguel OtÃÂ¡rola (@motarola123) February 11, 2017

Here’s Miguel Otárola at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

The dueling protests were one of several planned around the Twin Cities Saturday on issues ranging from abortion to immigration to race relations. Nationwide, protests have been larger and more frequent since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, as both his opponents and supporters find their motivations and momentum growing. [...] Of the 9,861 abortions recorded by the Minnesota Health Department in 2015, more than half — 5,048 — were performed at a Planned Parenthood clinic. But only one of the 18 Minnesota clinics provides abortion services. The clinics serve about 24,000 Medicaid patients a year, according to Planned Parenthood. Low-income patients make up 65 percent of the patients.

Defunding is something reproductive rights activists say will harm women’s health—particularly low-income women’s health—because so many use Planned Parenthood for free or low-cost birth control, screening and counseling for sexually transmitted infections and diseases, pregnancy testing and counseling, HIV testing and counseling, and annual gynecological exams. At some Planned Parenthood facilities, a woman can also get an abortion. While no federal funding can pay for abortions except in the rare cases of pregnancies that result from incest, rape or that endanger the woman’s life, the government does provide money to the organization for those other services.

This makes no never-mind to the forced-birthers. They say the fact that some Planned Parenthood operations perform abortions means none of them should be funded. What that means, of course, is that more women are likely to need abortions because they can’t afford birth control, and that many of them will suffer from afflictions that might otherwise have been prevented or caught early in their development.

In addition to their efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, many forced-birthers like to harass women who use the organization for their health needs. Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, says that one very encouraging thing the organization has seen since the election in November is an “explosion” in the number of people who volunteer to escort women past the harassers.