Post-Roe, anti-abortion groups target law protecting clinics from violence

The Face Act penalizes people for blockading and threatening abortion clinics. Anti-abortion activists want it repealed

Carter Sherman
Sat 16 Sep 2023

The inside of the abortion clinic was chaotic. Anti-abortion protesters lined the walls. A few had sat down on the clinic’s lime green chairs and draped themselves in chains. “Please inspire these parents to keep their babies!” one man shouted, before he started singing about the Virgin Mary. As some of the protesters sang and prayed loudly, the police officers crowded inside the clinic tried to urge them to move. They didn’t want to budge.

It was 22 October 2020, and one anti-abortion advocate was livestreaming a group of activists who were at the Washington DC-area clinic to, in their view, “rescue” people from having abortions. One redheaded young woman turned to the camera.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/16/face-act-anti-abortion-threaten-clinics

US anti-abortion activist who kept fetal remains convicted of blockading clinic

Lauren Handy and other anti-abortion protesters invaded a Washington DC clinic in 2020 and blocked people from entering

Carter Sherman
Tue 29 Aug 2023

Lauren Handy, the anti-abortion activist who kept five fetuses in her Washington DC home, was on Tuesday found guilty of breaking federal law by blockading an abortion clinic.

The charges stem from an incident in October 2020, when Handy and nine other anti-abortion protesters invaded a Washington abortion clinic, according to an October 2022 indictment of the group. Handy used a fake name to book an appointment at the clinic, then blocked people from entering the waiting room while other defendants chained themselves together inside the clinic, prosecutors alleged. One of the clinic’s nurses sprained her ankle after she was pushed by a protester, according to the indictment.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/29/lauren-handy-anti-abortion-convicted-blockading-clinic

29.08.2023

News

anti-choice blockade

anti-choice clinic invasion

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice violence

FACE Act

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

USA – One year later, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision is both scorned and praised

By GEOFF MULVIHILL
Jun 25, 2023

Activists and politicians are marking the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned a nationwide right to abortion with praise from some and protests from others.

Advocates on both sides marched at rallies Saturday in Washington and across the country to call attention to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling on June 24, 2022, which upended the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-dobbs-roe-anniversary-rally-ff6196c80112b7c9d5e6822b1807bf3e

USA – THE FIRST “WRONGFUL DEATH” CASE FOR HELPING A FRIEND GET AN ABORTION

The lawsuit’s long game — beyond instilling fear — is establishing fetal personhood, the holy grail of the anti-abortion movement.

Mary Tuma
April 26 2023

“YOUR HELP MEANS the world to me,” a grateful Brittni Silva texted her best friends, Jackie Noyola and Amy Carpenter, last July. “I’m so lucky to have y’all. Really.”

A month after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Houston mother of two experienced an unplanned pregnancy with her now ex-husband and allegedly sought abortion care with the help of her friends. For nearly a year, Texas had imposed a six-week abortion ban, and a full “trigger” ban would be enacted in just a few weeks. Silva needed to act fast and extricate herself from what appeared to be an emotionally unhealthy relationship with a husband she would go on to divorce in February. Her friends offered their unwavering support.

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2023/04/26/abortion-wrongful-death-texas-lawsuit/

Texas’s strict new abortion law has eluded multiple court challenges. Abortion rights advocates think they have a new path to get it blocked.

The new strategy is a response to attacks by antiabortion groups on organizations raising money to help low-income patients get access to abortions.

By Caroline Kitchener, Washington Post
March 21, 2022

The initial attacks came in court and on social media, when a group of antiabortion lawyers accused two Texas abortion rights groups of funding abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, the legal limit under Texas’s restrictive abortion ban. They filed official requests in court for more information on the abortions, then took to Twitter, warning that anyone who helped fund abortions through these two groups “could get sued.”

“The Lilith Fund and the Texas Equal Access Fund have admitted to paying for abortions in violation of the Texas Heartbeat Act,” said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, an antiabortion legal group, referring to abortions the groups helped to facilitate over a two-day period in October when a judge temporarily blocked the ban.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/21/texas-abortion-sb8

Texas – Abortion rights groups sue, saying ‘extremists’ are using the courts to target them

Courts asked to block any lawsuits resulting from information gathered in depositions of leaders of groups that fund abortions

By BeLynn Hollers
Mar 18, 2022

Two abortion rights groups — Texas Equal Access Fund and Lilith Fund — have together sued two organizations outside of Texas and two private individuals who they say are targeting them as they try to aid pregnant women after the passage of SB 8, the state law that bans abortions after around six weeks. The Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based nonprofit law firm, and America First Legal Foundation, a D.C.-based advocacy group, are the two organizations listed in the lawsuit. It also names Ashley Maxwell of Hood County and Sadie Weldon of Jack County as defendants. The two women filed petitions in January and February, seeking to depose leaders of the Texas Equal Access Fund and the Lilith Fund.

Continued: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2022/03/18/abortion-rights-groups-sue-saying-extremists-are-using-the-courts-to-target-them/

Anti-abortion lawyers target those funding the procedure for potential lawsuits under new Texas law

Attorneys who helped design Texas’ novel abortion ban have asked a judge to allow them to depose the leaders of two abortion funds, seeking information about anyone who may have “aided or abetted” in a prohibited procedure.

BY ELEANOR KLIBANOFF
FEB. 23, 2022

For nearly six months, as Texas’ novel abortion law has wended its way through the courts, abortion providers and opponents have been locked in a stalemate.

The law, known as Senate Bill 8, empowers private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. With one exception as soon as the law went into effect, abortion providers in Texas have stopped performing these prohibited procedures — so opponents haven’t tried to bring one of these enforcement suits.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/23/texas-abortion-sb8-lawsuits/

The tiny American towns passing anti-abortion rules

In the last year, 23 Texas towns have declared themselves ‘sanctuary cities for the unborn’, making the procedure punishable, and in April, a Nebraska village became the 24^th

Jessica Glenza
Tue 27 Apr 2021

Over the last year of the pandemic, 23 tiny towns in Texas have approved local laws declaring themselves “sanctuary cities for the unborn”, passing ordinances to make the procedure punishable by a $2,000 fine.

In April, the tiny village of Hayes Center, Nebraska, became the 24th, and the first outside Texas.

ontinued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/27/us-tiny-towns-anti-abortion-ordinances

USA – When Will These Attacks on Abortion Rights End? You Won’t Like the Answer.

When Will These Attacks on Abortion Rights End? You Won’t Like the Answer.
Legal precedent means very little to judges and justices personally opposed to abortion rights, as we've seen during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Apr 22, 2020
Jessica Mason Pieklo

It seems each day brings new developments on abortion rights in the time of COVID-19. It’s maddening and has left me with one lingering question: Will this shit ever end?

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit once again put a halt on nearly all abortions in Texas, issuing a ruling Monday allowing the state to enforce Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) COVID-19 ban.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2020/04/22/when-will-these-attacks-on-abortion-rights-end-you-wont-like-the-answer/

USA – Anti-Choice Activists Say Abortion Isn’t ‘Essential,’ but Clinic Protests Are

Anti-Choice Activists Say Abortion Isn’t ‘Essential,’ but Clinic Protests Are
While the rest of us stay at home, anti-choice protesters will keep performing their "vital service" outside abortion clinics during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Mar 31, 2020
Jessica Mason Pieklo

More than 200 million people in the United States have been ordered to stay at home by state and local officials desperate to slow the spread of COVID-19 in their communities.

Governors and public health officials have asked businesses not deemed “essential” to temporarily close for the same reason.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2020/03/31/anti-choice-activists-say-abortion-isnt-essential-but-clinic-protests-are/