Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 20, 1995 TAG: 9506200084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The justices, without comment, left intact an appeals court ruling in a Virginia case that said the law does not infringe on anyone's freedom of expression while protecting people who seek or provide abortions.
Eight federal trial judges and two federal appeals courts have upheld the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE, but a federal judge in Wisconsin has declared it unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court action did not resolve the issue definitively, but was a setback for anti-abortion activists who say the law aimed at deterring violence and intimidation squelches peaceful protest as well.
Concerned Women for America and one of its members had filed the appeal the court refused to hear. Still pending before the justices is a challenge to the clinic-access law by another anti-abortion group, the American Life League.
``Our appeal raises the free-speech issue, but also argues that Congress lacked the authority to enact such legislation because no interstate commerce was involved,'' said Marion Harrison, an American Life League lawyer. ``We think that's a hot-ticket issue with the Supreme Court right now.'
Abortion rights advocates welcomed Monday's action.
``FACE has been a highly effective tool against abortion clinic violence,'' said Deborah Ellis of the National Organization for Women Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Kate Michelman of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League said the law ``does not restrict free speech, but it does punish harmful conduct.''
``Anti-choice protesters must recognize that opposition to abortion is not a license to stalk, bomb, threaten, harass, intimidate or murder doctors and women,'' Michelman said.
President Clinton signed the law May 24, 1994. That same day, the two anti-abortion groups sued in Alexandria in an attempt to have the law invalidated.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema threw out both lawsuits, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld her ruling in February.
Concerned Women's appeal said the challenged law ``is the only federal statute designed to regulate political protests of only one selected movement, the pro-life movement, at one selection site, abortion clinics.''
by CNB