High court appears to side with pro-life protesters
- Dec 15, 2005
The Supreme Court appeared prepared Nov. 30 to settle once and for all in favor of pro-life demonstrators a case it thought it had disposed of two years ago.
The justices heard oral arguments in a case involving the use of a federal anti-racketeering law against protesters outside abortion clinics. When the high court ruled 8-1 in a 2003 opinion the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) did not apply to such protests and remanded the case to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, the justices clearly believed they had settled the matter.
The Seventh Circuit, however, heeded arguments by the National Organization for Women and decided the high court had not dealt with four of the 121 violations of federal and state law committed by demonstrators as determined by a federal judge. The judge had said those four acts involved threats of violence. The pro-life protesters—Joseph Scheidler, national director of the Pro-life Action League, and Operation Rescue—appealed to the Supreme Court, and the justices again agreed to accept the case.
This will be the third time the high court has ruled in the case. In 1994, the justices dealt with a procedural question and returned the case to the lower court.
During the latest oral arguments, some of the justices did not conceal their disdain for the Seventh Circuit’s action. Even associate justices as divided as Antonin Scalia, who opposes the Roe v. Wade opinion legalizing abortion, and David Souter, who favors abortion rights, appeared to be in lockstep this time.
Supporters of the pro-life demonstrators have always contended the case, which began with a NOW lawsuit in 1986, was about free speech more than abortion. During the lengthy process, animal rights and disability rights activists, death penalty foes and anti-war protesters filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of Scheidler and Operation Rescue. Even a leading labor organization, the AFL-CIO, supported the pro-lifers this time because of concern about an adverse ruling’s impact on strikes.
In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled the pro-lifers did not violate the anti-racketeering law because their activities did not qualify as extortion. The protesters had not obtained property from abortion clinics or abortion rights advocates, the court ruled. The Hobbs Act, a federal, anti-extortion law, requires “not only the deprivation but also the acquisition of property” in order to reach the definition of extortion, late Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in the majority opinion.
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