NATION : Pro-Choice Backers Lobby Congress

WASHINGTON — Abortion rights activists lobbied on Capitol Hill today as their leaders predicted that the massive turnout for their march will leave a strong impression on the Supreme Court.

Hundreds of activists who took part in Sunday’s march got some quick lessons in congressional lobbying and then made their way to the offices of their local representative or senator to press their case.

While law enforcement authorities estimated the Sunday rally crowd at 300,000, Eleanor Smeal, president of the Fund for the Feminist Majority, said the turnout was more than 600,000. Either way, the turnout was higher than the 90,000 people who gathered for a March, 1986, abortion rights rally in Washington and the number that the rally’s organizers had predicted.