Counterprotesters outnumbered protesters 10 to 1 at a St. Paul rally Saturday morning calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

Sarah Stoesz, president of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, called the counterprotest an unprecedented event. A St. Paul police commander on scene estimated the original protesters numbered about 500 while the counterprotesters numbered about 5,000 to 5,500.

“We’ve never seen anything like this at Planned Parenthood here in Minnesota,” Stoesz said. “Here in Minnesota we have 64,000 patients and about 24,000 of them would lose access to their health care if Congress is allowed to so-called defund Planned Parenthood. So it’s a very serious matter and you can see people are taking it very, very seriously.”

The defund rally was one of over 200 coordinated nationwde by the #ProtestPP Coalition, according to Brian Gibson of Pro-Life Action Ministries. Related Articles Gulf between Trump and doctors on mask wearing gets wider

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“Planned Parenthood claims that American women rely on them for health care, but in fact four out of five women will never set foot in a Planned Parenthood facility,” Gibson said in a statement before the protest. “Planned Parenthood provides less than 1 percent of annual pap tests and zero mammograms, but performs 34 percent of annual abortions in the U.S.”

The protest Saturday began at 9 a.m. at the Planned Parenthood Vandalia Health Center on University Avenue and Vandalia Street. As the anti-Planned Parenthood protesters chanted “Defund Planned Parenthood!” the much larger crowd of counterprotesters, separated from them by a barricade and about 20 feet of pavement, shouted, “Defend Planned Parenthood!”

Here's a look at the whole crowd. Original Planned Parenthood protesters mostly gone. pic.twitter.com/RCU4fTnfxI — Jaime DeLage (@JaimeDeLage) February 11, 2017

Protester Mel Brandl of Mounds View shrugged off the larger counterprotest, saying half of them were paid and noting that the vast majority of them carried the same, pink, mass-produced signs.

“Their argument is everything about the woman and nothing about the baby,” he said.

RELATED: Anti-abortion activists, counter-protesters rally around US

Twelve-year-old Emma Labine of Ramsey said the counterprotesters ignore that there’s another human being inside a pregnant woman’s body.

“It is their body, but there is another body inside them,” Labine said. “It’s not their choice.”

Some organizers and participants in the counterprotest said they were surprised by the turnout, but not all of them. Related Articles Trump aims to boost rural turnout in critical Wisconsin

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“I’m not surprised,” said Grace Jacobs of St. Paul. “I thought there would be this many.”

Her friend Elizabeth Brown, also of St. Paul, said she thinks protesting is becoming more accepted as a form of free speech. She said the Planned Parenthood protest and the recent surge in street demonstrations after the election of President Donald Trump created a good opportunity for the counterprotesters to amass.

“As women we should have the right to do what we want with our bodies,” said Dawn Bjerkelund of Minneapolis. “Nobody else should be able to decide.”