Sent to me by someone who works for this organization. I don't have a link right now, but I'll try and get it.

[quote]NEW HAVEN, CT) — The South Dakota legislature, which approved a “Women’s
Health and Human Life Protection Actâ€

I was wondering what the hell the Knights of Columbus were...

And now I know.

â€

double post
(mayeb it was just a silly attempt to get a higher post count??)

Supreme Court rules against abortion clinics
Justices rule anti-abortion protests may not be banned using extortion laws

Updated: 1:19 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to abortion clinics in a two-decade-old legal fight over anti-abortion protests, ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations.

Anti-abortion groups brought the appeal after the 7th Circuit had asked a trial judge to determine whether a nationwide injunction could be supported by charges that protesters had made threats of violence absent a connection with robbery or extortion.

The 8-0 decision ends a case that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had kept alive despite a 2003 decision by the high court that lifted a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion groups led by Joseph Scheidler and others.

In Tuesday’s ruling, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress did not intend to create “a freestanding physical violence offense” in the federal extortion law known as the Hobbs Act.

Instead, Breyer wrote, Congress chose to address violence outside abortion clinics in 1994 by passing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which set parameters for such protests.

The Supreme Court's ruling is a setback for abortion groups, taking away a powerful weapon they had used against organized protesters.

There has been a significant development since the National Organization for Women began its legal campaign against abortion protesters years ago: Congress passed the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) law, which makes it a crime to engage some of the behavior the women's groups originally targeted.

Even so, women's groups are sure to see the ruling as a blow for two reasons. First, it takes away a weapon they used to strike at the finances of abortion protesters, by suing for money damages. And second, many women's groups find FACE unsatisfying, because it depends on the willingness of local prosecutors to invoke it.

--Pete Williams, NBC Justice Correspondent


Social activists and the AFL-CIO had sided with anti-abortion protesters in arguing that similar lawsuits and injunctions could be used to thwart their efforts to change public policy or agitate for better wages and working conditions.

Long-running battle
The legal battle began in 1986, when the National Organization for Women filed a class-action suit challenging tactics used by the Pro-Life Action Network to block women from entering abortion clinics.

NOW’s legal strategy was novel at the time, relying on civil provisions of the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which was used predominantly in criminal cases against organized crime. The lawsuit also relied on the Hobbs Act, a 55-year-old law banning extortion.

A federal judge issued a nationwide injunction against the anti-abortion protesters after a Chicago jury found in 1998 that demonstrators had engaged in a pattern of racketeering by interfering with clinic operations, menacing doctors, assaulting patients and damaging clinic property.

But the Supreme Court voided the injunction in 2003, ruling that the extortion law could not be used against the protesters because they had not illegally “obtained property” from women seeking to enter clinics to receive abortions.

Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in the decision.

The cases are Scheidler v. NOW, 04-1244, and Operation Rescue v. NOW, 04-1352.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.




Wow, so this all seems to be unraveling even faster than I expected......
(Nice job on the copy and pasting Sandler... heh)

If that would have worked, could anyone have organized a protest ever again?

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Seeing that this was an 8-0 ruling makes me believe that the protestors didn't go into the realm of harrassment or worse.

And if they did go into the realm of harassment, I'm fairly certain that there are other statues that could be used to prosecute them. It seemed rather rediculous to me that they used the rackateering statues to prevent these groups from demonstrating. It seemed like a high act of hipocrasy on the liberals part - feel free to protest anything as long as we OK it, otherwise you are breaking the law. I don't think its fair that women be harassed when dealing with this already horrendous experience, and I think these groups could better use their resources elsewhere, but we can't deny them their free speech just because they express themselves in an annoying fashion.

If christian groups really want to end abortions they should focus on providing more support for single mothers or those with financial difficulties. They should focus on the cause rather than the act of abortion itself. Hell, I'd even challenge them that its their responsibility to make sure that every woman has a feasible alternative and the support to do it so that they don't have to have an abortion.

I really don’t think your suggestions would make much difference at all. So long as abortion is legal people will continue to take the easy way out.

Well, they might have gone into harrassment, but you have to make a law saying protestors can't harrass people and/or charge them with harrassment. You can't try to call them extortionists when they aren't.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Unless you want to protest abortion...

Did you read the thread? Supreme Court ruled 8-0.

I'm talking about how people in this community feel about the ruling. Damn those that wanna protest abortion.

In what community? No one even questioned the ruling.

Yeah, man. I don't want to step on their free speech. I want to beat them with a shovel.