Posted on 10/01/2009 1:41:59 PM PDT by KOZ.
Anti-abortion activists would have to respect the personal space of people entering medical facilities in Chicago or risk a $500 fine under an ordinance a City Council committee approved today.
The measure drew criticism from abortion rights opponents and praise from agencies that provide medical services including abortions.
Ald. Thomas Tunney, 44th, said the proposed ordinance, modeled after a Colorado state law upheld in 2000 by the U.S. Supreme Court, is not about the hot-button abortion debate. It’s designed to protect all workers and patients entering any medical facility who could be harassed, intimidated or assaulted, he said.
“What we’re here for today is a personal safety issue,” Tunney said.
The ordinance was proposed by Ald. Vi Daley, 43rd, who said workers and patients going to Near North Health Center, a Planned Parenthood facility in her ward, have complained of conditions outside the facility, which provides women’s health services including abortions.
“Women seeking any kind of medical service are routinely harassed,” she said. “They are photographed, and they are followed.”
The ordinance would establish a 50-foot zone outside the entrances of all health care facilities. Within that zone, no one could come within eight feet of another person, unless given consent, to pass out fliers, display signs, protest verbally, educate or counsel.
Also in the proposed ordinance is a provision that mirrors the federal Freedom of Access Act, which prohibits the use of force, threat of force, physical obstruction or intimidation to block someone from going into or leaving a health care facility. Jeffrey Levine, the city's chief assistant corporation counsel, said the federal provision is included in the local proposal so that city police could enforce it.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsblogs.chicagotribune.com ...
We pray at this clinic every Saturday, and we are affecting their business, so they are trying to ram this through next week.
“What we’re here for today is a personal safety issue,” Tunney said.
Irony of galactic proportion.
Ought to be a billboard visible from the entrance or parking lot saying
YES YOU CAN keep your baby! Need help? Call [whatever] or visit [whatever].com
As for the “harassment” of women coming “for all kinds of services” they don’t wear tags saying “mammogram” or “abortion.” Most are probably there for “abortion” however. If a woman bent on an abortion wants to get past the “harassers” all she has to do is tell them she’s going there for something else.
“Personal Space?” “Personal Safety Issue?”
In Chicago - the same Chicago that’s experiencing those teen age murders?
Oh, forgot, the Loon’s home town. Murder is a prime option.
Is there (hopefully) a major tectonic fault in Chicago?
Please?
Black slaves were treated better in antebellum times.
So pro-lifers are now "abortion rights opponents" while baby butchers are "agencies that provide medical services" that just happen to include abortions. Remind me why mainstream papers are going out of business.
"Those who control language control minds." Ayn Rand.
What’s truly ironic is that Chicago is the most Catholic city in the country.
These are bubble zones. We have the same thing here in Canada. They are not ‘personal’ by any means, they apply to the abortion clinic.
Clinic bubble zones are contrary to the first amendment.
does it apply to every protest or just anti-abortion ones??
Exactly. And they site the murder of the abortion doc and ‘escalated violence’, but the violence against women and children in the facility cannot be questioned.
Right, and since when does “personal space” equal to 50 ft?
All this from the town that produced pres.dent who was born without birth certificate!
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