Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 14, 1993 TAG: 9301140218
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
COURT RULING BACKS ABORTION FOES
Federal judges cannot stop protesters who try to block women's access to abortion clinics, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.The 5-4 decision, a victory for Operation Rescue and other anti-abortion protesters, means clinic operators must turn to state courts for help in thwarting blockades.
Abortion-rights advocates said they will look to Congress to provide new legal protection, and also to President-elect Clinton.
A president has the power to order federal protection without any court injunction. President Dwight Eisenhower did so when he ordered National Guard protection of students during racial-integration efforts in the 1950s.
And federal law authorizes state officials lacking the resources to cope with massive lawlessness to seek federal law-enforcement help if they cannot "protect the lives and property of citizens or . . . enforce the criminal law."
The ruling does not alter the core constitutional right of abortion, reaffirmed by the court in June.
At issue, instead, was the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and its ban on conspiracies aimed at violating the constitutional rights of a "protected class" of people, such as blacks.
The court, ruling in a case from Virginia, said the 1871 law does not apply to those who participate in abortion blockades because women seeking abortions are not part of such a class.
"Whatever one thinks of abortion, it cannot be denied that there are common and respectable reasons for opposing it, other than hatred of or condescension toward . . . women," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court.
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens called abortion blockades "a national conspiracy" that "presents a striking contemporary example of the kind of zealous, politically motivated, lawless conduct that led to enactment of the Ku Klux Klan Act."
Scalia was joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Byron White, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
Kennedy in June voted against letting states outlaw abortion. In a separate opinion Wednesday, he emphasized that abortion clinics may receive federal help without any court intervention.
Justices Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor dissented, and Justice David Souter dissented in part, saying he sometimes would allow federal court intervention.
Also Wednesday, the court upheld the removal of U.S. District Judge Walter L. Nixon with a 7-2 vote, saying that courts may not second-guess Congress' power to oust federal officials.