
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 23, 1990                   TAG: 9005230499
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ABORTION ISSUE

THIS week as last, an appeal ofan order enjoining Operation Rescue from carrying out protests at abortion clinics reached the U.S. Supreme Court. This week as last, Operation Rescue failed to get the injunction overturned.

But there are distinctions.

This week's case arose in New York City; last week's in Atlanta. In the New York case, the protesters had violated the injunction and been fined $70,000; in the Atlanta case, the protesters had tested the injunction in court without testing it at the clinics. This week, the Supreme Court unanimously declined to review the injunction; last week, the court heard the arguments and ruled 5-4 to uphold the injunction.

And this week, unlike last week, we agree with the court.

For the justices, it may have been a matter of precedent. They may have felt no need to hear a case so similar to one already decided. That's speculative: When the court declines to review a case, it doesn't give its reasons.

For us, it is a matter of free speech. The Atlanta injunction bans Operation Rescue demonstrations within 50 feet of an abortion clinic's property line, and seems based on the content as well as manner of expression. The New York injunction focuses on behavior: physically blocking doorways of clinics, and harassing their employees and clients.

To partisans on either side of the abortion argument, this may seem a distinction without a difference. To partisans of the First Amendment, it is a distinction with a big difference.

by CNB