ACLU Wins Court Order to Prevent Abortion Blockade : Federal Judge Acts in Face of Threatened Protest Action

Hoping to thwart protests planned in San Diego this weekend by anti-abortion activists, ACLU officials have obtained a federal court order to prevent protesters from blockading medical clinics where abortions are performed.

Officials of American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, including those from San Diego and Imperial counties, said they obtained a statewide preliminary injunction from U. S. District Court Judge A. Wallace Tashima in Los Angeles on Monday. The action was in anticipation of anti-abortion protests targeted for one or more clinics in the San Diego area Saturday.

ACLU officials said they will ask Tashima to levy fines of up to $10,000 against any protester violating the injunction, said Betty Wheeler, legal director of the ACLU Foundation of San Diego and Imperial counties.

“The ACLU of San Diego and Imperial counties is taking legal steps, in conjunction with the ACLU of Southern California, to make sure that all women in San Diego County will be able to exercise their constitutional right to reproductive choice . . .,” Wheeler said.

‘Vigorously Pursue Proceedings’

“The ACLU will vigorously pursue contempt proceedings against those persons who . . . deprive others of their constitutional rights,” she said.

Under the preliminary injunction, demonstrators will be barred from trespassing or forming blockades on the property of medical facilities that perform abortions and other family-planning services. They will also be banned from conducting so-called sidewalk counseling, which the clinics claim is a tactic to impede the movement of their patients.

Saturday’s protest will be sponsored by Project Rescue in San Diego, a local branch of the national group called Operation Rescue. The national group gained widespread attention for its practice of forming human blockades to prevent women from entering clinics, as well as for its participants’ willingness to go to jail for their cause.

2 Abortion Clinics Closed

More than 500 Operation Rescue activists were responsible for closing two abortion clinics in Los Angeles in February, and another protest is scheduled there from March 22 to 25.

To prevent such closures of San Diego clinics, ACLU officials said they decided to seek the court order to make sure women will not be barred from medical services this weekend, Wheeler said.

The ACLU chapters sought the order on behalf of medical providers such as Planned Parenthood and Womancare, Wheeler said. Other states have used such orders to ensure that women have full access to clinics, she said.

San Diego clinics are also planning to have volunteer guards on hand to escort women through protesters and into the medical offices, said Patricia O’Neil, associate director of Womancare.

Despite the federal court order, Project Rescue officials have said they will continue their efforts to discourage women from obtaining abortions.

“In order to stop the slaughter of unborn babies from conception to birth, those participating in Project Rescue will passively, repentantly and peacefully block the entrances of abortion clinics with their bodies,” San Diego organization leaders stated in a press release.

Rescue Efforts ‘Not Militant’

The Rev. Mick McCoy, pastor of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of East San Diego County and one of the clerics involved in Project Rescue, said Tuesday that the group’s efforts are “not militant.”

“It’s a peaceful, nonviolent attempt to stop the murder of unborn children,” he said, distinguishing his group from more militant anti-abortion activists.

McCoy could not say if the preliminary injunction would prevent some anti-abortion activists, most of whom are Christians, from joining the protest Saturday. But he said it is a “shame” for those who want to protect an “unborn child from death to receive a criminal charge for that.”

O’Neil of Womancare disputed the assertion that the blockades and sidewalk counseling against medical clinics have been peaceful.

“Across the nation, it’s not been anyone’s experience that they are peaceful protesters,” O’Neil said. “It’s violence against women who are being publicly humiliated for a decision.”

Lenore Lowe, director of community affairs for Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside counties, said it is a “miscalculation on the part of Operation Rescue organizers that the public will stand for such action. . . . Women resent someone else making this a public issue.”

Several Hundred Expected

Project Rescue organizers said they expect several hundred anti-abortion activists to attend a rally on Friday at the Youth for Christ Conference Center in Mission Valley, where the primary speaker will be Joe Schiedler, author of “99 Ways to Stop Abortion.”

Participants won’t be informed of the targeted clinic or clinics until the next morning, said Rick Monroe, publisher of “Good News, Etc,” a San Diego County Christian newspaper.

According to Operation Rescue statistics, more than 22,000 protesters have been arrested in more than 20 cities in the United States during protests, most of whom have been released after a day or so in jail.

ACLU officials, however, hope their federal injunction will “up the ante” and discourage the protesters from blocking entrances to the clinics.

An Operation Rescue supporter said the large fines stemming from the court order won’t make a difference to protesters.

“It (protesting) was illegal before and it’s still illegal now,” said an assistant in the Operation Rescue office in Los Angeles who gave her first name as Angela. “Nobody pays the fine anyway. We’d rather do jail time than pay the fine,” she said.

But organizers for Project Rescue in San Diego say the goal of their protest “is not to be arrested, but to save women from being exploited . . . and to protect the life of the unborn,” McCoy said.

“If that means putting ourselves physically between the child and the abortionists, then so be it.”