Posted on 12/09/2007 1:12:11 PM PST by Coleus
A 20-year-old legal fight over protests outside abortion clinics ended Tuesday with the Supreme Court ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used against demonstrators. The 8-0 decision was a setback for abortion clinics that were buoyed when the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals kept their case alive two years ago despite the high court’s 2003 ruling that had cleared the way for lifting a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion leader Joseph Scheidler and others.
Anti-abortion groups appealed to the justices after the lower court sought to determine whether the injunction could be supported by findings that protesters had made threats of violence. In Tuesday’s ruling, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress did not create “a freestanding physical violence offense” in the federal extortion law known as the Hobbs Act.
'A great day for pro-lifers'
Instead, Breyer wrote, Congress addressed violence outside abortion clinics in 1994 by passing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which allows for court injunctions to set limits for such protests. “It’s a great day for pro-lifers,” said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said the decision was disappointing because the injunction had decreased violence outside clinics nationally. She said the clinic access act is problematic because it requires abortion providers to seek injunctions “city by city” and turns back the clock to the late 1980s when NOW played cat and mouse with Operation Rescue in trying to anticipate the cities and clinics that abortion protesters planned to target next.
Newman said his group and others have set their sights on the clinic access law, filing legal challenges they hope will lead courts — possibly even the Supreme Court— to overturn it.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Great news - hadn’t heard this til your post. Thank you, Lord Jesus!
8 zip - very nice.
It took 20 years to conclude the obvious.
Why should baby killing clinics have any special treatment than any other organization regarding protestors? A victory for America and Americans.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Feb. 28, 2006
Fairly old news
not even a year old, so you don’t think that the issue and decision are important enough to be posted on the FR 10 months later?
Good news indeed!!
Um, how about because it was posted on Free Republic over ten months ago when the story first broke.
was it? I couldn’t find it. I’m so terribly sorry that I wasted some bandwith on the FR, perhaps I should be suspended for a week or so.
In Massachusetts if you mutter a single word against abortion while standing within 50 miles of an abortion mill you can get 20 years.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg must have slept through this one.
“Why should baby killing clinics have any special treatment than any other organization regarding protestors? A victory for America and Americans.”
Because they are in a protected constitutional class, just like gun shops!
(Sarcasm off)
February 2006 was not less than a year ago, nor was it 10 months ago; it was 22 months ago.
was it? I couldn’t find it. I’m so terribly sorry that I wasted some bandwith on the FR, perhaps I should be suspended for a week or so.
FR is a news forum. A story from early 2006 is no longer news. Angry sarcasm is not an appropriate reaction to someone commenting (quite mildly) on the fact that you posted an old story.
this is news applicable to today, it’s a supreme court decision regarding pro-life activism and purported organized crime statutes, RICO, that was used against them. Obviously, an issue not important to some FReepers. I knew the date of the story before I posted it, I did a search, found nothing and then posted. Now i’m wasting time with your minutia.
I still have yet to see any such FR threads regarding this story. Can you and the other “date moderators” find this so-called thread?
this is news applicable to today, it’s a supreme court decision regarding pro-life activism and purported organized crime statutes, RICO, that was used against them.
So is every Supreme Court decision ever made fair game for its own thread in the FR News forum at any given time?
Anyway I don't think any of us would say you should never post such a thing. But it's easy for people to miss the publishing date on a thread if it's not highlighted some other way; the simple note from the other poster mentioning that it was an old story was appropriate so that readers would be less likely to think that it was a current event. You may have noticed that some readers did so anyway.
Obviously, an issue not important to some FReepers.
It's important to me, but so are a lot of things; that doesn't mean I post nearly two-year-old stories about them.
I knew the date of the story before I posted it, I did a search, found nothing and then posted. Now i’m wasting time with your minutia.
I would not have commented, but your angry, sarcastic attack on that poster was uncalled for, so I decided to say something. Not that it's made you any friendlier.
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