A California abortion clinic is seeking to restore an old injunction against protesters, preventing pro-life activists from presenting evidence to defend themselves.
The anti-abortion “J Street Five,” as they are known, were ordered in 1991 by a Sacramento Superior Court judge to pay nearly $100,000 in legal fees after they were sued by a local clinic. The defendants unsuccessfully appealed the fee award all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, insisting that they broke no laws and were not allowed to submit key evidence. Some were forced to declare bankruptcy.
Shortly after the five protesters were barred from the clinic’s sidewalks, more than 100 pro-abortion activists held boisterous rallies in the “speech-free zone,” prompting pro-life proponents to assert that the real issue was not their behavior but the content of their message.
Now, the Women’s Health Specialists clinic (formerly the Feminist Women’s Health Center), which has moved twice since the original lawsuit, wants the injunction revived at its new location in northeastern Sacramento, claiming its clients are being harassed by protesters.
A hearing is scheduled this afternoon before Judge James Long in Sacramento Superior Court, the judge who made the 1991 ruling.
Two of the original “J Street Five,” Murray Lewis and Don Blythe, have continued their “sidewalk counseling” activities outside the clinic’s current and previous locations.
A lawyer for the two men, Dana Cody of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, objects that the clinic is not asking for an evidentiary hearing based on due process.
“These defendants have a right to question people that are testifying against them through declarations and still photos that are taken out of context and actually don’t show anything unlawful,” Cody told WorldNetDaily.
The 1991 permanent injunction, which came after a preliminary injunction in 1989, expired after the clinic moved from its J Street location in downtown Sacramento about 10 years ago. Its most recent move was in August.
Cody maintains that seeking to resurrect the old injunction is “just a lazy way to not have to go through all the things that go along with an injunction.”
“People on the pro-abortion side are used to being able to go into court and use public sentiment against pro-lifers, and I think that’s what they’re doing in this case,” she said.
Clinic director Shauna Heckert said she and her co-workers certainly hope it will be an easier legal battle, but primarily for financial reasons.
“We’ve been in court for years and years,” she told WND. “We are non-profit, so we do not need to recreate the wheel here.”
Nationwide model
Pro-life defender Cody said a decision to restore the old injunction would not establish a legal precedent, because it’s a superior court decision, but “the other side networks just like we network, and they’re going to get wind of it, and they’ll try it everywhere.”
Heckert notes that the original 1991 decision became a model for women’s clinics around the country.
She claims that protesters in front of her clinic are “screaming and yelling at patients, writing down license plate numbers, blocking driveways and causing havoc.”
“These are intimidation tactics,” Heckert told WND. “Women call saying they are afraid to come in because these people are out there. Inside the clinic they hear them screaming and yelling out there, and during the procedure itself they need more medication to calm down.”
Heckert’s claims about the protesters are “absolutely false,” asserts Harry Reeves, a former special agent with the U.S. Navy investigative service, who says he’s been “sidewalk counseling” near the clinic for about seven years, usually with about a half-dozen others at a time.
Reeves considers himself a leader in a local group called the Sanctity of Human Life Network.
“Our goal is to try and approach couples or women coming in who are abortion-minded, to give them literature, show them some pictures and to let them know there are alternatives,” he said. “We do it based on our Christian value that life is given by God, and abortion is an act of violence that kills an innocent human being.”
Raising voices
Reeves contends that the clinic itself is causing the commotion, by placing “escorts” on the sidewalk, who, as they lead clients into the clinic, try to drown out the voices of his colleagues with boom boxes and leaf blowers.
“The only way we can try to have a conversation is to raise our voices,” he said. “If they call that yelling, they can do that, but we only do that because of the noise they make trying to screen us out.”
Reeves said his group tells women about to enter the clinic, “We’re Christians, we’ll help you, let your baby live, we can adopt your baby.”
“They have the choice to reject that information,” Reeves said. “But Shauna Heckert and her folks are not in favor of choice, but in favor of being completely shielded from the pro-life point of view.”
Only a very small number of the women change their minds, Reeves said, about three or four a month.
Lewis believes Judge Long is most likely to rule in the clinic’s favor, based on declarations by the clinic escorts, “without allowing us to refute the evidence according to general evidentiary rules.”
“Their declaration says we are approaching people and shoving things into their face, which we don’t,” Lewis said, “because if you offend someone, they are not going to read your literature.”
The clinic’s attorney, Mark Merin, told WND that such matters were addressed in the 1991 decision.
“We’re not getting back to square one, we’re just talking about modification of an existing permanent injunction,” he said. “The issues related to the need for the injunction were already hashed out in the trial and appeals were upheld. The only issue here is the change from one facility to another.”
But Merin does not expect today’s court session to be routine.
“I know we have a bunch of fanatics on the other side who will probably come in trying to do all kinds of things, including getting the injunction thrown out,” he said. “So I expect a scene, frankly.”
Merin is asking for a “speech-free zone” to extend 20 feet from both sides of the clinic’s driveway.
Sidewalk face-off
In 1991, Judge Long refused to admit video and photographic evidence from Lewis and his colleagues. Some of those images were of aggressive tactics by “Clinic Escort Coordinator” Alison Gude, a local lesbian activist hired by Heckert in February 1989.
Gude no longer works for the clinic, but some of her methods persist, according to Lewis, who notes that she co-authored a manual called Clinic Defense: A Model. The manual, which the judge also refused to admit as evidence, was published by the Bay and Sacramento Coalition against Operation Rescue.
Operation Rescue, or OR, is one of the best-known anti-abortion activist groups.
Samples of Gude’s manual, according to a 1991 National Review article, include:
- “Even if the sidewalk is ‘public,’ we’ve had success at putting enough of us out, early enough, to bully the [pro-lifers] into staying across the street.”
- “There are innumerable instances of clinic defenders neutralizing male ORs by shouting, ‘Get your hands off me, don’t you dare touch me,’ all the while they are tugging or pushing OR out of line.”
- “Our best work is done before police arrive, or when there are not enough police to prevent us from doing what we have to do. Get in place before the cops can mess with it; establish balance of power early; do key acts requiring physical contact as much as possible before cops have enough people to intervene.”
- “Singing goddess songs while they do their Hail Marys is a lovely way to affirm an alternative view of appropriate religious activities.”
In the video produced by Lewis and his colleagues, escorts are shown taunting and spitting at pro-life activists, throwing punches, screaming expletives, shoving and body-blocking, according to a 1994 story in The New American magazine.
Related column:
The high cost of muzzling free speech
Related special offer:
“Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation”
