THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 19, 1996 TAG: 9603190300
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
The Supreme Court dived back into the battle over anti-abortion demonstrations Monday, agreeing to clarify the ``dos'' and ``don'ts'' of protests outside abortion clinics. At issue: When does free speech become harassment?
The court will decide whether most demonstrators at abortion facilities in the Buffalo and Rochester, N.Y., areas can be kept 15 feet away from the entrance, driveway, any patient or staff member.
Lower courts upheld the 15-foot buffer zone, challenged as a violation of demonstrators' free-speech rights.
Monday's action was something of a surprise. The justices ruled in 1994 that judges can bar even peaceful protests from getting too close to abortion clinics, and upheld a 36-foot demonstration-free zone around a Florida clinic.
Since then, the court consistently had refused to review challenges to similar limits on demonstrations.
``We're delighted to be given another opportunity to make our point,'' said anti-abortion lawyer Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice in Virginia Beach. ``I think it was the floating nature of this bubble zone that attracted the court's attention. I want to burst the bubble and allow free discussion.''
Deborah Ellis of the NOW Legal Defense Fund called the court's action ``unusual and worrisome.''
She guessed that the court may focus on that portion of a federal judge's order that allows two ``sidewalk counselors'' to penetrate the buffer zone to talk to patients but requires them to ``stop and desist'' if a patient asks to be left alone.
The court likely will hear arguments in the case next fall and announce a decision in 1997. Its backdrop: the continuing debate over abortion and a string of violent acts at abortion clinics.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara imposed the buffer zone after abortion providers sought to head off planned demonstrations by various anti-abortion groups.
The judge compared such demonstrations to ``blockades'' at which anti-abortion activists ``yell at patients, patient escorts and medical staff entering and leaving the health care facilities.''
He said demonstrators ``also crowd around people trying to enter the facilities in an intimidating and obstructing manner, and grab, push and shove the patients, patient escorts and staff.''
A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the buffer zone and sidewalk-counselor provision as free-speech violations. But the entire appeals court voted 13-2 last September to reverse the panel's ruling.
``The First Amendment (and its guarantee of freedom of speech) does not, in any context, protect coercive or obstructionist conduct that intimidates or physically prevents individuals from going about ordinary affairs,'' said an opinion signed by nine judges.
Lawyers for two anti-abortion activists argued that the ``new constitutional right `not to be hassled in public' will swiftly encroach on union picket lines, gay-rights activists and all other anti-establishment protesters who `hassle' the American people by challenging the status quo.''
Anti-abortion groups such as Operation Rescue, Project Rescue Western New York and Project Life of Rochester were named as defendants in the original 1990 lawsuit. But Monday's appeal was filed in behalf of just two individuals - Rev. Paul Schenck and Dwight Saunders.
Lawyers for abortion providers urged the justices to reject the appeal. ILLUSTRATION: In other action, the Supreme Court:
Let an Oregon woman pursue a lawsuit over injuries she says were
caused by the Dalkon Shield intrauterine device.
The court, without comment, turned down a Dalkon Shield
compensation fund's argument that Oregon wrongly revived claims of
people whose right to sue had expired.
Susan Shadburne says the Dalkon Shield she used in the 1970s left
her infertile and contributed to her multiple sclerosis. She sued
the maker of the contraceptive device, A.H. Robins Co., in 1983.
Agreed to use an Illinois dispute to clarify a key rule for
determining which of the nation's small businesses are covered by a
federal law banning on-the-job discrimination. (Story, D6)
Rejected an attempt by Arkansas officials to deny Medicaid-funded
abortions for women impregnated by rape or incest.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SUPREME COURT RULINGS by CNB