The NOW Gang and the Merchants of Death in the abortion industry have AGAIN lost in their never-ending battle to silence those of us who oppose abortion.

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

Anti-abortion groups brought the appeal after the appellate court sought to determine whether the injunction could be supported by charges that protesters had made threats of violence.

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.

One major problem with the position of the anti-speech anti-life groups was that they sought to conflate all pro-life activists into one gigantic criminal conspiracy. The acts of unrelated groups and individuals were said to be a part of a pattern, and leaders of various groups were alleged to be responsible for the actions of individuals who were members, even if they did not direct them to engage in the conduct.

When I talked to Joe Scheidler about this many years ago, he noted that one part of the so-called conspiracy was the fact that he had written a book on how to hassle abortion facilities – the anti-lifers claimed that he was therefore a party to the so-called misconduct of any individual who attempted to implement the peaceful, non-violent tactics he included in the book. Under that theory, Dr. Martin Luther King could have been jailed any time there was a sit-in anywhere in the country during the civil rights movement.

Now any of you baby-killing anti-lifers out there who think this is a bad decision, consider who the allies of the pro-lifers were.

Social activists and the AFL-CIO had sided with abortion demonstrators in arguing that lawsuits and injunctions based on the federal extortion law could be used to thwart their efforts to change public policy or agitate for better wages and working conditions.

In other words, even the so-called “progressive” movement recognized that your suit sought to undermine legitimate speech and assembly.

Posted by: Greg at 06:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 407 words, total size 3 kb.