Nope those are still legal. The ones at the parties conventions are an extension of the courts power. Much like you can’t protest in the plaza in front of the Supreme Court. The free speech zones are there for the purpose of ‘keeping the protesters safe’ as abortion protesters aren’t in danger we can’t corral them.
I don’t really have an issue with this ruling. The situations involving abortion clinics suck. Unfortunately I think the only way to protect the women going into the clinics is to design them like embassies where they can drive a vehicle into a private courtyard thus never have to be exposed to the mob. You can exclude protesters from private property no problem.
We all know abortions are such a lucrative business they should have no trouble building massive complexes to keep would be assassins and bombers out /sarcasm.
I have an issue with it. It’s inconsistent with free speech zones. If eight feet is good enough for pregnant women, it’s good enough for political convention delegates and Supreme Court justices.
Apparently in 1994 Congress passed the FACE act which made it illegal to, among other things, block a clinic entrance. I kinda figured that would already be illegal.
The sidewalk thing works if the clinic is right on top of it, but if it’s in its own parking lot wouldn’t it be fruitless to protest? You’d be like 100 feet away from anyone going in, depending on the layout.
Tricky. For one thing, the protests I have personally seen blocked the driveway to the parking lot, as well as blocked pedestrian access. It was a full scale blockade.
(This was in San Diego…but some years ago. Back when Operation Rescue was a much bigger deal than it is today.)
Things are a lot better than they were then…but things can always turn around and get worse again. I wish the Supreme Court hadn’t taken away the measure of protection they just did.
Is there a way to locate clinics in either
a) Bigger / more public buildings that see MORE traffic?
b) Within hospitals?
c) Have the pro choice people organise themselves so that there is a constant stream of people going into and out of the clinic? I’m thinking of the order of 50-60 per hour entering the carpark / front door - staying for 10 minutes then leaving. How quickly would the protesters get tired in such a scenario?
There are many options clinics could take to prevent protesters from harassino clients, but options much like the one’s you’ve mentioned take time and resources clinics don’t have.
In states like Massachusetts the government took action to protect these clinics and take the burden off the clinics. The Supreme court has hamstrung that effort.
That’s how it is in France. Setting up the appointments and so on is done at Planned Parenthood, but the procedure itself is more often than not performed at a hospital. Safer that way. Cheaper, too.
I’ve seen anti-abortion protestors surround cars that stop outside the clinic, keeping women from opening car doors to get out. Legally, that is kidnapping.
At common law, kidnapping is the unlawful taking of a person from some place (“asportation”) and secretly confining that person elsewhere his or her will.
Different states have slightly different formulations. In Virginia, there’s also a requirement to prove force, intimidation or deception, and the intent to either deprive such other person of his personal liberty or to withhold or conceal him from another person who has legal custody.
In no state is the action you describe “legally kidnapping.”
I mean – when you say you’re talking about protesters only, I get that – but your phrasing sounded more like you were saying something that was true for all abortion opponents, not just the subset of protesters that you have met.
Yes, that’s the rule.
Of course, clinics don’t always follow it. Recently a clinic employee with no health care license or certification gave a patient a drug to induce an abortion, and then performed an ultrasound on the woman, although the employee wasn’t trained in that procedure. There was no physician at the clinic, even though the patient had arrived pursuant to an appointment. When the doctor on duty finally arrived, he determined that that the woman’s pregnancy was more complicated than the clinic was equipped to handle, and he refused to perform the abortion. She was pregnant with triplets, and ultimately had the procedure performed at a hospital.
As RNATB suggests, there’s almost certainly the civil wrong of false imprisonment. And there is a crime of false imprisonment as well, at common law. The elements of false imprisonment as a crime are: the intention to confine a person within boundaries set by the accused; restraint of the person with no reasonable way of escape; which restraint impedes the detained’s freedom of movement; against the detained person’s will; when the detained person is aware of the detention and did not initially consent thereto; when such detention is not otherwise justified by law; such that the detention interferes with the detained person’s liberty.
In this case, as I picture what’s happening, the problematic element is “no reasonable way of escape.” Here, as I understand it, the protesters are not preventing escape, but simply blocking the path which leads to the clinic. If they were, for some bizarre reason, surrounding the car and not letting anyone leave even to depart from the clinic, that would almost certainly trigger the crime of false imprisonment.
So when people point out what is the rule and not the exception for on-site abortion protestors, you think the proper response is to point out the rare exception and not the rule when it comes to abortion providers?
Perhaps. The tactics used by abortion protesters are criticized, with the clear implication that such tactics are per se objectionable.
So perhaps a clarifying question is appropriate: are these tactics objectionable because they impede access to abortion, or objectionable in a more general sense?
They’re objectionable because it’s morally wrong to yell at/harass/berate/etc. women due to the streets they choose to walk down and due to the buildings they choose to enter.
And that, my friends, is the “close, personal conversation,” the “sidewalk counseling”, that the five Catholic men (by a *remarkable *coincidence) on the Supreme Court find so innocuous and so requiring of protection.