Amicus Curiae Brief — Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic

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a. Ae FiLiLA UY

(y MAY 13 1991

No. 90-085

wey | OFFICE OF THE CLERK

In THE

Supreme Court of the United States

OcToBER TERM, 1990

JAYNE Bray, e¢ al.,

Vv.

ALEXANDRIA WOMEN’S HEALTH CLINIC, e¢ al.,

Respondents.

Petitioners,

a On Writ of Certiorari to the

* United States Court of Appeals

for the Fourth Circuit

: BRIEF OF 29 ORGANIZATIONS COMMITTED TO

‘s WOMEN’S HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EQUALITY

% AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS

(List of Amici Curiae on Inside Cover)

DAWN JOHNSEN

; Counsel of Record

fe Lois EISNER MURPHY

; Marcy J. WILDER

4 NATIONAL ABORTION RIGHTS

3 ACTION LEAGUE FOUNDATION

S 1101 14th Street, N.W.

¥ Washington, D.C. 20005

“4 ; (202) 408-4600

May 18, 1991 Attorneys for Amici Curiae

5 a ES

: WILSON - Epae Printine Co., Inc. - 789-0096 - WASHINGTON, D.C. 20001

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE ......00..0.0.0.00.0000000000-.. _

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT. .....0.......22......:ccccessececesceeeees

SEE a

I. WOMEN ARE MEMBERS OF A VALID

Il.

CLASS PROTECTED UNDER 42 US.C.

A. A Sex-Based Class Satisfies The Statute’s

B. Petitioners’ Conspiracy Interferes With

Rights Possessed By Potentially All Women.

PETITIONERS’ ACTIONS ARE MOTIVATED

BY A SEX-BASED ANIMUS DIRECTED AT

ithaca esnncainnaiieneniademniateneten Ssieihiamanstiines

A. Sex-Based Animus Requires An Aim To

Deprive Women Of The Equal Enjoyment

ee I ID GI ..... cccnssesemmssnsenececnsenes

B. The Activities In Which Operation Rescue

Engages Demonstrate That The Conspiracy

Is Aimed At Depriving Women Of Their

TS ae

CONCLUSION ............... idhlidhcsiaaibiatenatindanentenciiniaininniean ssteiinenien

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases Page

Conroy v. Conroy, 575 F.2d 175 (8th Cir. 1978). 5

Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U.S. 484 (1974)... 8

Great Am. Fed. Savings & Loan v. Novotny, 442

& fs EE een 5

Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88 (1971) 4, 13, 14,

16, 27

International Union v. Johnson Controls, 59

U.S.L.W. 4209 (U.S. Mar. 20, 1991) 8,9

Life Ins. Co. of N. Am. v. Reichardt, 591 F.2d 499

EEE RS ancl ea ae 5

Long v. Laramie County Community College, 840

F.2d 743 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825

Rar A RL Re eis en ewan raliceadliabié 5

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 ( 1967) aa ~

Mississippi Women’s Med. Clinic v. McMillan, 866

er 16

New York State NOW v. Terry, 886 F.2d 1339 (2d

Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 110 S. Ct. 2206 (1990) . 5

Novotny v. Great Am. Fed. Savings & Loan Ass'n,

584 F.2d 1235 (3d Cir. 1978) (en banc), vacated

on other grounds, 442 U.S. 366 (1979) a 5

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)... 6

Stathos v. Bowden, 728 F.2d 15 (ist Cir. 1984) _ 5

United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners of Am. v.

Scott, 463 U.S. 825 (1983) .........000000 6

Volk v. Coler, 845 F.2d 1422 (7th Cir. 1988) 5

STATUTES

I ah passim

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964... 9

OTHER AUTHORITIES

Alan Guttmacher Institute, Blessed Events and the

Bottom Line: Financing Maternity Care in the

United States (1987) 10

Brief for the Amici Curiae Women Who Have Had

Abortions and Friends of Amici Curiae in Sup-

port of Appellees, Webster v. Reproductive

Health Services, 109 S. Ct. 3040 (1989) No. 88-

ID» cceicttatiniaipiaddiita ceca eee eee 13

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES—Continued

Page

Brief for Petitioners _.............................-.... 7, 13, 14, 15, 16

Brief for the United States as : Amicus Curiae ...... 6, 14, 16

F.G. Cunningham, P. MacDonald, N. Gant, Wil-

liams Obstetrics (18th ed. 1989) _... ee 10

Forrest, Unintended Pregnancy Among American

Women, 19 Fam. Plan. Persps. (Mar./Apr.

EES PS A NS RI A 13

R. Gold, Abortion and Women’s Health (1990) . 10

S. Henshaw, J.D. Forrest & J. Van Vort, Abortion

Services in the United States, Each State and

Metropolitan Area, 1984 and 1985 (1987) ........ 6

Henshaw, Koonin & Smith, Characteristics of U.S.

Women Having Abortions, 1987, 23 Fam. Plan.

Persps. (Mar./Apr. 1991) .............-..-------------- 13

Henshaw and Van Vort, Abortion Services in the

United States, 1987 and 1988, 22 Fam. Plan.

Persps. 102 (May/June 1990) . 6

N. Hunter, Position Paper /Time Limits « on 1 Abor-

tion in Reproductive Laws for the 1990s: A

Briefing Handbook (1988) . 10

Jones & Forrest, Contraceptive ‘Peilure | in - the

United States: Revised Estimates from the 1982

National Survey of Family Growth 21 Fam.

Plan. Persps. (May/June 1989) _....................... 9

Research Refutes Perceived “Infertility Epi-

demic,” Wash. Post, Dec. 7, 1990 7

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fertility of American

Women: June 1988, Current Population Re-

ports, Series P-20, No. 436 (1988) ........

IN THE

Suprene Court of the United States

OCTOBER TERM, 1990

No. 90-985

JAYNE Bray, et al.,

. Petitioners,

ALEXANDRIA WOMEN’S HEALTH CLINIC, et al.,

Respondents,

On Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals

for the Fourth Circuit

BRIEF OF 29 ORGANIZATIONS COMMITTED TO

WOMEN’S HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EQUALITY

AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS

(List of Amici Curiae on Inside Cover )

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE

Amici curiae are organizations that are committed to

women’s health and women’s equality. We share a com-

mon concern for the protection of women’s constitutional!

and statutory rights, including the constitutional right

to travel and the constitutional right to reproductive

autonomy.

In an effort to bring to the Court’s attention the per-

Spectives of the women who have been the targets of peti-

tioners’ conspiracy to deprive them of their constitutional

rights, amici curiae have collected letters from women

and their supporters, including physicians, clinic staff

and volunteer clinic escorts, who have been subjected to

the use of force, violence and intimidation by those who,

like petitioners, participate in blockades of abortion

clinies.' These letters graphically illustrate that the mo-

tivation behind petitioners’ conspiracy is to deprive

women of the equal protection of the law and the equal

privileges and immunities under the law.

The more specific interests of each of the organiza-

tions that have joined together here as amici curiae are

set forth in Appendix A.*

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

This case arises out of petitioners’ conspiracy to en-

gage in physical blockades that prevent women from

obtaining health care at certain medical clinics that pro-

vide abortion and related services including counseling

and information concerning abortion. The purpose of

petitioners’ conspiracy is to deprive women, through

force, violence, and intimidation, of the equal protection

of the laws and equal privileges and immunities under

the law. Consequently, because the animus or motivation

behind this conspiracy is to deprive a protected class of

their equal rights, petitioners’ conspiracy falls squarely

within the scope of activity proscribed by 42 U.S.C.

§ 1985/3).

The extensive excerpts from letters by women seeking

to exercise their rights and physicians and volunteer

clinic escorts who seek to help those women, demonstrate

that petitioners’ conspiratorial purpose is to deprive

women of the equal protection of the laws. As one letter

stated,

' These letters have been lodged with the Clerk of this Court.

Letters quoted in this brief will each be referenced by a number,

preceded by the letter “C” (e.g.: “C1") and the texts of all letters

quoted herein are reproduced in full in Appendix RB.

* Amici curiae file this brief with the consent of all parties and

letters of consent have been filed with the Clerk of the Court pur-

suant to Rule 36.

I am convineed that the agenda of Operation Rescue

and similar organizations is not to exercise [ree

speech, rather it is to bully and intimidate women

from utilizing clinic services .... Physical intimida-

tion and verbal assault are the primary tools em-

ployed against women... . C14.

In some cases, those blockading the clinics are successful

in preventing women from entering the clinics:

I also remember the faces of patients arriving for

appointments, seeing the blockades and having to re-

act immediately. These were women’s faces showing

fear and confusion, panic and crisis. If they sum-

moned al! their courage and tried to get inside, with

the help of escorts, O.R. [Operation Rescue] sti’!

pursued them, chasing, yelling and grabbing. Many

women simply turned around and went home. C74.

These letters describe the physical obstacles erected by

petitioners’ blockades faced by women seeking to enter

the clinics.

Far from being a peaceful demonstration of opposi-

tion to abortion, Operati “escue physically blocked

access to allow anyone to the clinic. The group

was overwhelmingly made if men whose presence

intimidated anyone who seught entrance to the clinic.

C73.

I remember O.R.’s |Operation Rescue] pushing and

shoving and kneeing and elbowing, as they charged

in large numbers through and over !ines of pro-choice

volunteers toward clinic doors and entranceways.

C74,

The letters also describe the intimidating and violent

nature of the acts undertaken by petitioners and others

who attempt to close down clinics in furtherance of the

conspiracy against women. At a blockade in Texas,

(Tihe rescuers completely blocked the front door

A clinie worker had to get out of the building

so she could give the trespass warning, as is required

by Texas law. We went to the back door .... A

group of rescuers blockaded that door as well. When

we opened the door so the clinic worker could get out,

they attempted, by main force, to shove their way

through the door so they could get to the clinic. We

managed to prevent this, but I was bruised up pretty

thoroughly and got my shoulder strained so severely

that a doctor’s care was required. C38.

As one woman who was confronted with a blockade when

she arrived at a clinic to have an abortion said, “There

is absolutely no excuse for the hostile, intimidating be-

haviors that these anti-choice protestors direct towards

women seeking abortions.”’ C61.

ARGUMENT

I. WOMEN ARE MEMBERS OF A VALID CLASS PRO-

TECTED UNDER 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3).

A. A Sex-Based Class Satisfies The Statute’s Class

Requirement.

As respondents persuasively argue in their brief to this

Court, beth the broad language of the statute and the

statute’s legislative history support a finding that women

form a cognizable class under 42 U.S.C. $ 1985(3)." In-

deed, petitioners do not challenge this interpretation.

Nothing in the language of the statute limits its appli-

cation only to African-Americans or other racial classes.

To the contrary, the statute employs broad language,

extending protection to “any person or class of persons”

who are the subject of private conspiracies to deprive

them of the equal protection of the laws. Moreover, as

% As discussed in respondents’ brief, this Court, in Griffin v.

Breckenridge, interpreted the statutory requirement that the con-

spiracy must be formed “for the purpose of depriving, either directly

or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection

of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws,”

to mean that the conspirators’ action must be motivated by a “class-

based invidiously discriminatory animus.” 403 U.S. 88, 102 (1971).

respondents demonstrate, the legislative history of 42

U.S.C. §1985(3) reveals that Congress contemplated

classes of people not snecifically identified at that time,

such as women, as people who might be subjected to a

conspiracy motivated by class-based discrimination to in-

terfere with their rights. All seven of the United States

Courts of Appeals that have considered the issue have

held that women are a class protected by this statute.‘

This Court has previously assumed, without deciding, that

sex—an immutable characteristic like race—is a valid

basis for identifying a class protected under section

198513). Great Am. Fed. Savings & Loan v. Novotny,

442 U.S. 366 (1979): see id. at 389 n.6 (White, J.,

dissenting).

B. Petitioners’ Conspiracy Interferes With Rights

Possessed By Potentially All Women.

The ultimate goal of petitioners’ conspiracy is to pre-

vent women from exercising their legal rights, including

the right to travel anywhere in the United States® in

order to obtain necessary medical care including abor-

tions and related services.” Petitioners and the United

4New York State NOW v. Terry, 886 F.2d 1339 (2d Cir. 1989),

cert. denied, 110 S. Ct. 2206 (1990); Volk v. Coler, 845 F.2d 1422

(7th Cir. 1988); Long v. Laramie County Community College, 840

F.2d 743 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988); Stathos v.

Bowden, 728 F.2d 15 (1st Cir. 1984); Life Ins. Co. of N. Am. v.

Reichardt, 591 F.2d 499 (9th Cir. 1979); Novotny v. Great Am.

Fed. Savings & Loan Ass'n, 584 F.2d 1235 (3d Cir. 1978) (en banc),

vacated on other grounds, 442 U.S. 366 (1979); Conroy v. Conroy,

575 F.2d 175 (8th Cir. 1978).

5 Amici curiae agree with respondents that the Court need not

reach respondents’ claim concerning the deprivation of their right

to privacy, and that a remand for consideration of this issue may

be appropriate if the Court deems consideration of that issue

necessary. f

* Throughout the history of abortion services in the United States,

women have been forced to travel interstate to obtain abortions,

both during the era when abortion was illegal in many states, before

States erroneously assert that this conspiracy is not dis-

criminatory because the blockades merely have a “dis-

proportionate effect on women.” ’ Petitioners’ blockades,

however, constitute deliberate, not somehow accidentai,

interference with women’s exercise of their rights, and

they deliberately interfere, not just “disproportionately,”

but exclusively with the constitutional rights of women.”

The class targeted by petitioners’ conspiracy is, therefore,

clearly sex-based.

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and continuing today. In recent

years, an increasing shortage of abortion providers has required

more and more women to travel to other states to obtain abortion

services. Thirty-four states suffered a decrease in the number of

abortion providers between 1985 and 1988. According to a report

published in 1990, as of 1988, no physician performed abortions in

eighty-three percent of counties in the United States. In some

states, such as North Dakota and South Dakota, only one abortion

provider remains statewide. As a result, many American women

live hundreds of miles from the nearest provider. Henshaw and

Van Vort, Abortion Services in the United States, 1987 and 1988, 22

Fam. Plan. Persps. 102 (May/June 1990); S. Henshaw, J.D. Forrest

and J. Van Vort, Abortion Services in the United States, Each State

and Metropolitan Area, 1984 and 1985 100-105 (1987), and addi-

tional unpublished data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute. The

harassment, blockades, and violence engaged in by petitioners and

other similar organizations are contributing factors to this dra-

matic and dangerous decline in the availability of abortion services.

See Letter C62 in Appendix B.

7 Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae at 6.

* The fact that doctors, clinic administrators, clinic employees,

and volunteer clinic escorts are also targets of petitioners’ con-

spiracy does not detract from the argument that the class is women,

nor does it detract from the argument that petitioners are motivated

by a sex-based animus. The animus of petitioners is to deprive

members of the class—-women—of their constitutional rights. The

other individuals are present, and petitioners confront them, because

they are actively supporting women in the exercise of the rights

with which petitioners seek to interfere. The legislative history of

the statute and the prior decisions of this Court make clear that

the fact that conspirators target “supporters” of the members of the

class is not inconsistent with a showing that the conspirators have

the requisite class-based animus. United Bhd. of Carpenters &

Joiners of Am. v. Scott, 463 U.S. 825, 836 (1983).

Petitioners misconstrue the class that respondents have

identified, incorrectly identifying it as “women seeking

abortions.” Respondents have clearly alleged that the

class for whom protection is sought under section

1985/3) in this case is women, and the nature of the

conspiracy in which petitioners are engaged supports

this definition of the class.’ Petitioners misleadingly label

the alleged class in an attempt to imply that it is merely

a “sub-class” of women.'” The reality is that the vast

majority of women may, at some time in their lives, re-

quire the medical services—including abortions, preg-

nancy options counseling, and related services--that peti-

tioners seek to deny women. The availability of counsel-

ing and information about abortion services is critical to

women’s ability to protect their physical well-being and

make decisions about their health care, based upon an

understanding of the complete range of reproductive

options.

The constitutional rights infringed by petitioners’ con-

spiracy extend to all members of the class. All women

of childbearing capacity may, at some time, require the

types of services of the health care clinics that are

blockaded by petitioners. Consequently, all women are

targets of petitioners’ conspiracy to deprive women of

their equal rights under the law."' Petitioners’ conspiracy

* Alternatively respondents alleve a class of “women who seek

the services of providers of abortion and related services,” which

accurately identifies the women who are the direct and immediate

victims of petitioners’ conspiracy. As discussed below, the alterna-

tive class is essentially all women and is therefore, in relevant

respects, indistinguishable from the class of women.

” Brief for Petitioners at 17.

‘It is not relevant to the definition of the class that a small

fraction of women—estimated at 8.4 per cent- may be infertile.

Research Refutes Perceived “Infertility Epidemic,” Wash. Post,

Dec. 7, 1990, at A-11 (citing W. Mosher & W. Pratt, Fecundity and

Fertility in the United States, 1965-88, National Center for Health

Statistics, Advance Data, No. 192 (Dec. 4, 1990)). On the con-

is not directed only at the particular women seeking ac-

cess to a particular clinic on a given day, but is designed

ultimately to stop all women who at any time may wish

to exercise their right to travel to seek abortion services

or information related to abortion and medical options

during pregnancy.

That all members of a class are not presently seeking

to exercise their rights is irrelevant. Although not all

women are currently seeking employment in battery fac-

tories, a policy that discriminates in hiring for such jobs

on the basis of women’s childbearing capacity nonethe-

less discriminates against women as a class." Similarly,

the fact that not all African-Americans seek to exercise

their right to decide to marry a person of another race,

in no way detracts from this Court’s holding that a ra-

cial classification, such as the classification in the Vir-

ginia statute challenged in Loving v. Virginia, violates

the equal protection clause.'* Therefore, notwithstand-

ing the fact that not all women are pregnant at any

given time, and not all women simultaneously seek the

care of providers of abortions and related services, all

women possess the right to travel to seek such services,

and women as a class are the direct targets of peti-

tioners’ conspiracy to deprive them of that right."

trary, many women thought to be “infertile” seek medical treat-

ment that includes extensive testing, monitoring, and counseling,

and are ultimately able to conceive.

The fact that a small percentage of the members of the class may

actually be irreversibly infertile does not undermine the existence

of the class. This court in Johnson Controls recently recognized

that a company policy that discriminated against women of child-

bearing capacity constituted discrimination on the basis of sex

under Title VII. International Union v. Johnson Controls, 59

U.S.L.W. 4209 (U.S. Mar. 20, 1991).

12 Johnson Controls, 59 U.S.L.W. at 4212.

18 Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).

4 The Solicitor General’s extensive discussion of a footnote in

Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U.S. 484 (1974), is entirely irrelevant to

The vast majority of women become pregnant at least

once during their lives. More than eight out of ten

women will have at least one child by the end of their

childbearing years,"" and an estimated two-thirds of

American women will have at least one unintended preg-

nancy in the course of their lives." In any single year,

more than six million women (eleven per cent of those of

reproductive age) become pregnant, and 3.4 million of

respondents’ claim that petitioners’ conspiracy is deliberately aimed

at depriving women of their equal right to travel. Moreover, the

issues presented in this case are of statutory, not constitutional,

interpretation. In interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of

1964—another statute protecting women from sex discrimination—

this Court recently held that an employment policy that excluded

women of childbearing capacity from certain jobs was “a facial

classification based on gender.” Johnson Controls, 59 U.S.L.W., at

4211.

15U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fertility of American Women:

June 1988, Current Population Reports, Series P-20, No. 436, at

17 (1988).

16 Forrest, Unintended Pregnancy Among American Women, 19

Fam. Plan. Persps. 77 (Mar./Apr. 1987). According to a 1982 sur-

vey, 65 per cent of women between the ages of 40 and 44 have had

at least one unintended pregnancy. Jd. This extraordinarily high

rate of unintended pregnancy is attributable primarily to the high

failure rates of existing methods of contraception, the unavailability

of certain contraceptives, and the lack of sex education. For ex-

ample, during the first year of using the method, approximately

one out of every seven women using a diaphragm or condom as

a method of birth control will become pregnant; similarly, one

out of sixteen women relying upon oral contraceptives will be-

come pregnant. See Jones & Forrest, Contraceptive Failure in

the United States: Revised Estimates from the 1982 National

Survey of Family Growth, 21 Fam. Plan. Persps. 103, 109 (May/

June 1989). Moreover, many existing methods of contraception

present significant health risks that make them medically inappro-

priate for many women. Finally, abstinence and sterilization do

not serve all women at all stages of their reproductive lives. Ab-

stinence during the 40 or more years a women is fertile is not a

viable way of life for most women, and sterilization, while effective,

requires women to sacrifice childbearing permanently, rather than

exercise their interest in procreative choice.

these are unintended pregnancies.'"’ Each year 3.7 million

American women give birth.’

Many women who had not previously considered having

an abortion may at some point need information or coun-

seling about abortion services and related testing and

services. Many women experience health problems as-

sociated with their pregnancies. Of every ten women who

become pregnant and bear a child, six are treated for

some medical complication during pregnancy, and three

are treated for major complications.'” The onset or wor-

sening of a disease or medical condition may create a

need for a woman to consider having an abortion, even

in cases in which the pregnancy was wanted and planned.

Among the medical conditions that present increased

risks to women’s health during pregnancy—sometimes to

the point of threatening the woman’s life—are pre-

eclampsia, cardiovascular disease, cancer (including cer-

vical, ovarian and breast cancer), high blood pressure,

kidney disease, immunological disorders, asthma, diabetes,

systemic lupus erythematosus, and acquired immunodefi-

ciency syndrome (AIDS). Moreover, a woman contem-

plating becoming pregnant who suffers from one of these

conditions may need medical care that includes counseling

about the full range of reproductive options, including

abortion, even before becoming pregnant.

Among the letters that amici have collected describing

instances in which clinic blockades have interfered with

TR. Gold, Abortion and Women’s Health 11. (1990).

Alan Guttmacher Institute, Blessed Events and the Bottom

Line: Financing Maternity Care in the United States 5 (1987)

(citing U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fertility of American Women:

June 1985, Current Population Reports, Series P-20, No. 406, 8-9

(1986) ).

% Jd. at 10.

) ““F.G. Cunningham, P. MacDonald, N. Gant, Williams Obstetrics.

659, 796, 806, 813, 816-17, 826-37, 858, 859-61 (18th ed. 1989);

N. Hunter, Position Paper/Time Limits on Abortion, in Reproduc-

tion Laws for the 1990s: A Briefing Handbook 110 (1988),

women’s ability to exercise their rights, several recount

compelling experiences that demonstrate that any woman

may discover, in the course of a pregnancy, that she re-

quires abortion services or counseling. One woman suf-

fered from diabetes and risked losing her life if she did

not terminate her pregnancy:

|A| tearful woman and her husband . . . had been

waiting in vain for the protestors to disperse. |The

woman] was diabetic and had been advised by her

doctor that an abortion was medically necessary. To

carry the pregnancy to term would likely cost the

woman her life, and she had made the decision to

abort, thinking of her husband and three children.

C27.

Several women sought abortions in cases involving

severe fetal anomalies:

The woman was carrying a fetus which, through

amniccentesis, was determined to be without kid-

neys. Their doctor told them that the fetus probably

would not survive delivery, but would definitely not

be able to survive on its own. Because protestors

were sitting in front of [the clinie| doors, {clinic

staff members! pulled the couple over the protestors

and through the doors. You could see the shock and

despair, especially on the husbands [sic] face, who

by now, was in tears. They told me that they wanted

to have children, but under the circumstances, felt

terminating the pregnancy at that point was the best

thing. The people blocking the doors just made a

very difficult experience even more traumatic. C26.

We had to encircle a woman who was being harassed

until she was sobbing uncontrollably. She explained

to us that she was only getting an abortion because

she had taken accutane which causes birth defects.

There was also a laminaria patient who had to have

her abortion completed that day or she could have

had serious complications. C62.

The letters also recount the experiences of women who

suffer from medical problems that require testing, moni-

toring and specialized prenatal care, and who may at

some point require counseling from a physician who is

able to address the full range of reproductive options,

including abortion.

I was having a lot of problems with hypoglycemia

during my pregnancy with terrible headaches occur-

ring when I didn’t eat... . After going through not

eating, drinking high-sucrose liquid, the beginnings

of a migraine and no sleep (not to mention being 7

months pregnant) this confrontation broucht me to

tears. ... We had made a Saturday appointment

specifically to discuss some important issues with my

doctor, but due to the circumstances [of a clinic

blockade], it did not seem appropriate to bring these

issues up at this time. He was visibly upset by this

demonstration. This affected our doctor-patient re-

lationship. After the test and my exam[,] my hus-

band, girlfriend and I approached the back exit to

leave. By this time there were lots of protesters out-

side. All three entrances were blocked by approxi-

mately 20 people each. I tried to open the door and

they wouldn’t move. They looked at us and started

singing Christian hymns. ... I just stood there

amazed, I couldn’t believe they were imprisoning us

inside the building... . I was feeling fairly shaky

and starting to be lightheaded by this point. The

nurse offered me some tea, which I declined because

I didn’t want the caffeine, and I asked if they had

any crackers. She got me some water and triscuits.

I returned to the waiting room to wait and eat and

try and deal with the anger I was feeling. I couldn't

eat much because my stomach was so tied up in

knots and the food was making me sick. My doctor

was concerned about me and he offered to cal! an

ambulance for me... . C12.

Women decide to have abortions for a wide array of

compelling and complex reasons not only related to their

physical health, but also based on their obligations to

their families, their deeply personal religious and moral

values, and their overall life situations and responsibili-

ties." If current abortion rates continue, forty-six per

cent of women currently of childbearing age will have

had at least one abortion by age forty-five.“ Each year

approximately three percent of American women have

abortions.”

Far from affecting only a small “sub-class”* of

women, conspiracies to interfere with abortion services

including counseling and information thus directly affect

the rights of all women, including those who may never

choose to have an abortion, as well as the many women

who do seek abortions and related services.

Il. PETITIONERS’ ACTIONS ARE MOTIVATED BY A

SEX-BASED ANIMUS DIRECTED AT WOMEN.

A. Sex-Based Animus Requires An Aim To Deprive

Women Of The Equal Enjoyment Of Their Legal

Rights.

As respondents persuasively argue, petitioners’ con-

spiracy is driven by a “class-based, invidiously discrim-

inatory animus” as required under section 1985/3).

Griffin, 403 U.S. 88, 102 (1971). Petitioners and the

2! In addition, women who are the victims of rape and incest may

choose to have abortions if they become pregnant as a result of these

crimes. For a full discussion of the many reasons women may de-

cide to have abortions, illustrated in excerpts from the letters of

individual women recounting their personal experiences with abor-

tion, see Brief for the Amici Curiae Women Who Have Had Abor-

tions and Friends of Amici Curiae in Support of Appellees, Webster

v. Reproductive Health Services, 109 8. Ct. 3040 (1989) (No.

RR-605).

22 Forrest, Unintended Pregnancy Among American Women, 19

Fam. Plan. Persps. 77 (Mar./Apr. 1987).

23. Jn 1987, the United States abortion rate was 27 abortions for

every 1000 women of childbearing age. Henshaw, Koonin & Smith,

Characteristics of US. Women Having Abortions, 1987, 23 Fam.

Plan. Persps. 75, 76 (Mar./Apr. 1991).

* Brief for Petitioners at 17.

United States as amicus curiae in support of petitioners

misstate the animus requirement when they argue that

Operation Rescue is not motivated by “hostility toward

women,” * or “animosity toward women.” * No such

“hostility” or “animosity” is required, nor is support for

such a requirement cited by either petitioners or the

United States. To the contrary, this Court emphasized

that the requirement of animus is a requirement of

“motivation” and that the conspiracy “must aim at a

deprivation of rights secured by the law to all.” 2" The

aim of petitioners’ conspiracy is to deprive women of

their “rights secured by the law to all,” including their

right to travel to obtain necessary and protected health

care, by physically barring women’s movement.

Respondents’ comparison of the conspiracy alleged in

this case to the conspiracy alleged in Griffin, and deemed

sufficient by this Court to satisfy the animus require-

ment, is compelling. In Griffin, as here, the purpose of

the conspiracy “‘was to prevent [the] plaintiffs .. .

through . . » force, violence and intimidation, from seek-

ing the equal protection of the laws and from enjoying

the equal rights, privileges and immunities of citizens

under the laws of the United States and the [states].’”

403 U.S. at 103. The Court concluded that “|t]hese

allegations clearly support the requisite animus to de-

prive the petitioners of the equal enjoyment of legal

rights because of their race.” Jd. In this case, peti-

tioners’ goal is to prevent women, and only women, from

= Brief for Petitioners at 20.

** Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae at 14.

*? This Court specifically limited the meaning of the “animus”

requirement for the purposes of this statute to “invidiously dis-

criminatory animus,” and not “scienter in relation to deprivation

of rights.” The “animus” requirement does not incorporate a

requirement of “willfulness,” and “must not be confused with the

test of ‘specific intent to deprive a person of a federal right made

definite by decision or other rule of law.’” Griffin v. Breckenridge,

403 U.S. at 102 n.10.

freely exercising their rights under current law. Thus,

petitioners’ conspiracy is based upon the requisite class-

based discriminatory animus under the statute.

B. The Activities In Which Operation Rescue Engages

Demonstrate That The Conspiracy Is Aimed At

Depriving Women Of Their Rights.

Petitioners erroneously assert that the question pre-

sented in this case is whether “opposition to abortion,

standing alone, . . . translate[s] into sex discrimina-

tion.” ** Neither respondents nor the lower courts have

suggested that opposition to abortion, without more, con-

stitutes discrimination against women. Petitioners’ mis-

characterization ignores a fundamental distinction be-

tween the physical blockades in which petitioners engage

and “opposition to abortion, standing alone.” Petitioners

possess and act on the requisite class-based animus be-

cause they purposefully engage in concerted, mob action

to prevent women from exercising their legal rights.

That petitioners’ aim is to prevent women from equally

exercising their legal rights is vividly conveyed in the

voices of individuals who have related their personal

experiences at clinic blockades in letters collected by amici

curiae. These letters describe the various actions clinic

blockaders undertake in their efforts to prevent women

from obtaining medical care. Petitioners, unlike many

people who oppose keeping abortion legal and who seek

to change the law through legislation, litigation, and

other forms of social and political activism, are moti-

vated by a determination to deprive women of their

rights under existing law through any means available

including physical confrontation, terrorism, violence and

trespass. One clinic volunteer described the terrorist tac-

tics used by the blockaders:

The windows in the clinic have been shot out three

different times during the night and it is also fright-

ening to arrive in the morning to find windows shat-

*8 Brief for Petitioners at 19.

tered by bullets and bullets lodged in the walls... .

|T|he building has been covered with red paint, eggs

have been thrown all over the building and the park-

ing lot. C29.

Petitioners’ blockades are not, and are not intended to

be, peaceful attempts to “persuade,” “discourage,” and

“dissuade” women from having abortions.” Rather, peti-

tioners’ clear motivation is to deprive women of the op-

portunity to exercise their rights and enjoy the equal

protection of the laws, by physically impeding women’s

freedom of movement. In the words of one clinic em-

ployee, the protesters will “stop at nothing to prevent

women from exercising their legal rights.” C22. Far

from engaging in peaceful sit-ins, demonstrations or

other acts of persuasion, petitioners frequently resort to

unlawful means—— including “force, intimidation and vio-

lence” “’—to exert control over women’s reproductive

decisions.

A tactic employed in virtually every clinic blockade is

for the blockaders to form a barricade in front of the

doors to the clinic so that women cannot enter or leave.

At 7:30 A.M., approximately 350 people came march-

ing toward my building in block formation, about

twelve abreast. I met them at the property boun-

dary with two private security guards and said what

the police had instructed me to say. What a joke—

not a funny one either. The mob pushed me al! the

way to the front door of the clinic and proceeded to

** Brief for Petitioners at 20; Brief for the United States as

Amicus Curiae at 14. Both petitioners and the United States place

misleading and unwarranted emphasis on the facts recited in Missis-

sippi Women's Medical Clinie v. McMillan, 866 F.2d 788 (5th Cir.

1989). Unlike the conspiracy that is the subject of this litigation, the

allegations in Mississippi Women's Medical Clinic involved only

picketing and attempts at persuasion. Here, by contrast, the peti-

tioners’ purpose is to interfere with women’s exercise of their

rights through intimidation and physical obstruction of their free-

dom of movement.

” Griffin, 403 U.S. at 103.

pin me and the guards against the brick wall and

door. There were thirteen female employees now

trapped in the building. More of the group went and

blocked the two back doors. C33.

Another letter described how the blockades extend to the

sidewalks around the clinic and into the streets to inter-

fere with traffic.

Ingress and egress to the clinic is often impeded by

protesters physically blocking the sidewalk or drive-

way. The most frequent targets for these actions

are women walking or driving alone. I have seen

protesters place themselves prone in the drive or

public street in front of moving cars forcing the

drivers to stop. C47.

The force and physical obstructions are not limited to

the clinic entrances and surrounding sidewalks. Block-

aders often try to shove through the doors in order to

invade and occupy the clinic, recognizing that once they

break through the doors, they can more effectively put

a halt to the provision of medical services. At a clinic

in Vermont, patients and staff were held hostage for

hours inside waiting and examination rooms before the

police could remove “the intruders who had bicycle locked

their necks together.”

Once the locked door was open, 39 men and 13

women charged out of a moving van and stormed

into the [Women’s Health Center|, knocking me to

the waiting room floor. While I was trying to reach

the telephone, a man bodily trapped me while |

watched hordes of people invade the building. 1

feared for the safety of the staff. I envisioned the

damage and destruction to our property. ... A pa-

tient was trapped in the counseling room adjoining

the occupied hallway. She had come to the Health

center that day for further screening of an abnormal

pap smear to determine if she had cervical cancer.

Staff was unable to reach her. She was alerted

throueh the intercom that the building had been in-

vaded and that the police were on their way... . It

took 6 hours to remove the intruders who had bicycle

locked their necks together. As | ] police at-

tempted to remove these people, they struggled. Two

policemen were injured in the process. Others were

called Nazis. . .. Over the long hours of that after-

nvon I personally endured vicious name|[-|calling and

was subjected to their hateful behavior. A man call-

ing himself Father Baby John Doe kicked me. I felt

violated and assaulted .... C5.

As [the assistant director of the clinic] opened the

heavy, steel firedoor, I heard her scream. Seven pro-

testers had thrown their full body weight against the

door to prevent the doctor’s entrance. In the process,

they had pinned the assistant director in the door

and she was being crushed by the combined weight

of the door and the people pressing against it. I

wedged myself between her and the door in an effort

to gain some leverage and relieve the pressure on

her. She was freed, the door was opened a bit more

and the protesters grabbed my ankle and pulled me

to the ground. I landed on my knee and twisted it

badly. I was half in and half out of the building,

and I was crying and begging them to let go of me

because | was injured. . .. Nobody moved, despite

the fact that I was obviously hurt. C40.

In addition to physical obstruction, blockaders use fear

tactics and emotional coercion to terrify women out of

exercising their legal rights. In the words of one victim,

in order to bar access to medical facilities that provide

abortion services, they “bully and intimidate women from

utilizing clinie services.” C14. One person remarked,

“(Hiaving to fight your way through people trying to

block your access .to health care is not only a draining

ordeal physically, but emotionally, as well.” C44. And

as one employee in a doctor’s office explained, “I can’t

count the number of times I’ve seen a patient came [sic]

in erying, near hysteria, totally initimidated [sic] by the

OR [Operation Rescue] picketers.” (C4.

In their effort to interfere with women’s ability to

exercise their rights through provoking fear and anxiety,

blockaders often focus their verbal harassment specifi-

cally at women seeking to enter the clinics. One such

tactic is to bombard the woman with a series of very

intrusive and personal questions.

Physical intimidation and verbal assault are the pri-

mary tools employed against women by anti-abortion

groups. They refrain from accosting men on public

streets to demand personal information on pregnancy

status, marital status, religion, or his sex life. In-

stead they assail women. . . . The privacy and dig-

nity of women is completely disregarded with every

clinie blockade. That this kind of behavior is con-

doned is unacceptable; that women specifically must

bear the rage and contempt of Operation Rescue

should no longer be endured. C14.

Decisions about pregnancy, abortion, and childbearing

are intensely personal, and the threat of exposure is ter-

rifying to many women. Tactics that play on the fears of

women seeking medical care at the clinics are not un-

usual. One escort remarked that a blockader ‘writes

down the license tag numbers from all the cars parked

in the clinic parking lot. Some of the clients who come

from small towns are intimidated by this.” (C33. One

escort tells of a woman who “demanded that a client

parking in the clinic lot produce some identification. The

client told us later she had no idea who [the protestor|

was, but assumed she was someone in authority!. W|hen

an escort came up to the car and the protester retreated

the client was still fumbling in her wallet and said

‘Here’s the I.D. that woman wanted.’” (C37.

One of the most invidious tactics has been the use of

photography and videocameras to invade the privacy of

women entering the clinics and to intimidate them out of

exercising their rights. One volunteer clinic escort re-

counts that “one of [the blockaders] usually has a cam-

corder and videotapes patients. This is one of the most

intrustive and upsetting things I have seen so far. The

patients are afraid that they will see themselves on tele-

vision, maybe on the evening news!” C62.

{Clinic blockaders|] photograph|] each patient as she

goes in the abortion clinic. I actually saw one pro-

testor continue to photograph two women even after

the women had told him to NOT take their picture.

. . the protestor, after being told to not take the

ladies|”] picture, smirked as he continued to take

snapshots. C2.

In at least one case, the result of the photographic record

was tragic:

I have observed anti-abortion picketers photograph-

ing all people who enter clinics. I know of one

particular instance in which an anti recorded the

license plate number, got the name of the owner, and

called to preach on the evils of abortion. Sadly, the

person who owned the car was the mother of a

woman who had not confided her pregnancy to her

family. . . . [This event] temporarily destroyed the

relationship between mother and daughter. The

daughter had been impregnated by the mother’s boy-

friend .. . [who| had taken advantage of her when

she arrived home in a drunken state. C3.

In their attempts to obstruct women from entering

clinies, the blockaders will torment even small children.

In one incident,

[The clinic blockaders| showed no respect even for

very small children. A mother with her two children

were simply walking by the clinic and came up to

find out what was going on when the O.R. [Opera-

tion Rescue] people shouted at the woman and

showed bloody pictures to her children who were

horrified. C9.

In another episode, “{o]ne man yelled at a black woman,

“You bitch . . . they’re going to kill your little black

baby.” If a woman has a child with her, they will say,

‘What a beautiful baby. Do you want to kill this one

too?’” C1.

One clinic escort described an experience in which,

(A] woman in the company of her two children ap-

proached the clinic. They were met by a frenzy of

hostile picketers who shoved at them photographs of

what they claimed were aborted fetuses and screamed

at the mother, ‘Don’t kill your baby!’ The fact that

the woman was there to see the children’s dentist did

not phase the picketers and they continued to harass

and block her entrance to the clinic. . . . [Once in-

side, the children were hysterical, crying out,

‘Mommy, don’t kill us!’ C8.

In addition to verbal harassment, threats of physical

violence play an important role in the methods used by

petitioners and other blockaders to intimidate women and

to frustrate the efforts of others, such as clinic staff and

escorts, seeking to preserve women’s rights. One woman

who volunteers as a clinic escort stated that “|o]n four

occasions I have been physically threatened. . . . [One

man| walked back and forth in front of the Atlanta

Surgi Center with a big sign on a heavy wooden handle.

He shoved me repeatedly and said, ‘Stay away from me

or you could fall and really get hurt’ and “You could have

a bad accident.’ C37.

In another incident in which physical violende was

threatened,

A man in his late 50’s or early 60’s, about 6’1” or

6’2” . . . approached me and stood very, very close

to me. . . . He continued to breathe heavily, as

though he were barely restraining himself from hit-

ting me .... He said, ‘You had better get out of

here, miss.’ I was scared, but I knew he was trying to

scare me into leaving, so I kept standing there, look-

ing into the crowd. He said again, ‘I’m warniag you,

miss. Leave now.” I! did not. He then took one of the

wooden stakes, which seemed, from my peripheral

vision, to be about a foot long made from rough

lumber with a point at the end and a metal sheet in

the middle, out of his bundle and into his free hand.

It was trembling. He brought it up to my left eye,

a little to the left of the center of my eye, and about

2 or 3 inches away from my face. He began to twist

the stake slowly from side to side, not saying any-

thing, but breathing heavily. Then he said, ‘Get out

of here! and he jabbed the stake toward my eye on

each syllable. . . . It was the first time in my life

that I had been physically threatened. He was tak-

ing advantage of the fact that he was a foot taller

than J, at least 100 Ibs. heavier, and, for all practi-

cal purposes, armed. ...1 put myself at tremendous

risk of assault.... C16.

At an Operation Rescue action in New York, a blockader

ran to the side of the drive and picked up a jagged

rock. He came back and stood at my side of the car

and tapped the rock against the windshield. He kept

threatening us, saying no one else was around. I was

too scared to look around to see if he were telling the

truth, but I grabbed my camera and got pictures of

him holding the rock. I rolled down the window so

I could hear what was going on outside and I heard

him say he was going to kill us if we did not move.

I was tetrified because not only was the rock about

& inches from my face on the windshield, but one of

the WACDTF [Washington Area Clinic Defense

Task Force| members had recently been hospitalized

after an OR [Operation Rescue] member attacked

her with a flashlight in an abandoned parking lot.

I grabbed a jacket to shield myself from the glass

if it shattered .... C16. =

In another incident, a bleckader threatened to run over

a pregnant woman who was working as a clinic escort.

I was standing in front of {his} van. ... As the van

approached me, in a panic, I pushed back against it.

A nearby police officer ordered [him| to stop. Con-

tinuing forward, |he|] screamed, ‘No we have to go

rescue babies.’ . . . The police officer then slammed

his hand on the top of the van and again ordered

[him] to stop. This time [he] did stop. I was preg-

nant at the time this took place. This caused me to

have some early pregnancy spotting. C13.

The tactics used by petitioners and similar organiza-

tions are extreme. In order to deprive women of their

legal rights, clinic blockaders frequently move beyond

their verbal threats and resort to physical violence. One

clinic director described an experience in which,

The mob pushed me all the way to the front door

... and proceeded to pin me and the-guards against

the brick wall and door. . . . These people were

physically rough and abusive .... They hit us, they

bit us, they pushed and shoved us. I was elbowed so

many times I thought I would faint. ... For three

and a half hours I was against that brick wall and

door while the Operation Rescue people held bibles

up to hide their friends’ faces on the bottom of the

pile that were pinching, hitting, and biting us. C33.

' Women seeking to exercise their legal rights and their

supporters have sustained serious injuries at the hands

of the blockaders. A clinic escort, who identified the at-

tacker, ‘Ed’, as one of petitioner Randall Terry’s body-

guards, wrote that,

‘Ed,’ .. . rush{ed] my partner, picking her up, and

slamming her against the brick wall of the hotel.

She got up off the ground, whereupon, ‘Ed’ rushed

her again, forcing her to the ground, kicking her in

the stomach, back, face and breasts. ‘Ed’ then pulled

out his metal flashlight and began clubbing my part-

ner on the head and neck with the instrument. Dur-

ing this time, my partner had curled up in a ball,

attempting to protect her head and body. .. . ‘Ed’

was screaming at my partner that he was ‘going to

kill her,’ calling her a ‘murderous bitch’, ‘cunt’,

‘whore’ and ‘slut’. C43.

In another violent incident,

(Slix men rushed around the corner, knocking me

into a wall, a desk, and I finally landed on the floor.

The invaders made their way to the patient

waiting room where they used kryptonite locks to

chain themselves together. .. . [I have made] nu-

merous trips to doctors and under|gone] physical

therapy for three months for injuries sustained in

their assault... . C22.

Another clinic escort described how,

They [clinic blockaders] began pressing against us

and somehow one of the clinic defenders fell or was

pushed into one of the panes of plate glass and it

shattered. ... I felt numerous times that the physi-

cal pressure would do some damage to my body. I

was also very afraid, as I think we all were, that if

the OR |Operation Rescue] people kept pushing us

against the doors, another pane of glass might give.

And the most disturbing and frightening thing about

it was that when confronted with the prospect that

we might get hurt, most of the OR [Operation Res-

cue] people didn’t seem to care. C34

In the course of employing these intimidating — vio-

lent tactics, the clinic blockaders display an utter disre-

gard for the dangerous effects their actions have on

women’s health. The blockades cause more than a depri-

vation of legal rights, they endanger the health of women

seeking critical medical! eare.

Two women were there for the second day of a

two-day surgical abortion procedure, in which a

delay of the second days’ surgery (following an in-

jection given the day before) can threaten the pa-

tient’s reproductive system and her life... . [No

other clinic in the area performs such procedures. |

This was not-something that concerned the ‘pro-life’

people in the least, however. They descended on the

van [in which the two women were waiting] like ~

locusts and screamed every epithet in the book, call-

ing the women murderers, raving about blood and

bones and death, and waving grotesque photographs.

The women were in tears... . The women were

trapped in the van. ... |They] were not able to

return to the clinic until 7 p.m. that evening. For-

tunately no serious complications resulted, but not

only were they intimidated, threatened, and verbally

abused by “Operation Rescue,” their lives and health

were put in danger. C1.

The {clinic blockaders| demonstrated their disregard

of women’s health and well-being. This becomes evi-

dent when they shout to a woman... ‘You

should die, not your baby.’ These are individuals

who disrespect the integrity of a woman's conscience

and care little about her life or her family’s life. C5.

In some cases, according to a clinic escort, “women had

to wait lengthy periods after entering clinics, in order

for their blood pressure to return to normal levels, so

that medical procedures would not be unduly risky.” C44.

The behavior of clinic blockaders is so frightening and

intimidating that women are forced to take actions that

endanger their health and lives in order to escape from

the blockaders.

Another anti-choice protestor who is a large man,

runs up the street at women. These women are so

startled by a strange man running at them, that

several of them have darted into the street to try

and avoid him. They run into the street without

looking for oncoming traffic. This has led to close

calls and the anti-choice activist has endangered the

welfare of citizens by his aggressive actions. C39.

Petitioners have been so effective in their tactics of

intimidation that in many areas, the local police have

been either unable or unwilling to stop blockaders from

depriving women of their rights. For example, in a town

in Georgia,

The protesters have successfully intimidated the

Mayor of this small city located within the metro-

politan Atlanta area and the Police Chief as well.

It is seldom that we have any significant action by

the Mayor, the Police or the County law enforce-

ment officials in regards to their criminal activities.

C66.

Frequently, the police are not only unhelpful, but also

display a callous and offensive disregard for the rights

of the women seeking their assistance.

One of the policemen told me that they didn’t want

to take sides. When I said that I assumed that he

would be on the side of the law, he just shrugged his

shoulders. . . . One lieutenant said they should be out

chasing ‘real criminals like rapists who are sup-

posedly a cause of all these abortions.’ C62.

Among the letters that describe the refusal of local

police to provide assistance were the following:

I approached one of the policemen that were at the

building and told him that these people were inter-

fering with my right to see my doctor. He told me

ro couldn’t do anything because it could cause a riot.

48.

On May 3, 1987, approximately 80 anti-abortionists

in teams of 20 per group physically blocked the drive-

ways and streets to the surgical clinic. The police

were aware that this activity would take place but

made no effort to stop the criminal trespassing. C66.

In some cases the police simply stand by while clinic

blockaders engage in violent activities.

In the spring of 1990 Women’s Health Services had

over two hundred protesters in front of the high

rise office building where they are located. The

her a murderer and they told her the abortion would

placed my hand on the child’s shoulder and pushed

her to the side as quickly and gently as I could. The

police stood by and watched as we approached with

a look of astonishment but they did nothing. C54.

The activity in which petitioners engage is precisely

the kind of politically motivated mob violence designed to

prevent persons from exercising their rights to which

section 1985/3) was intended to apply. Because petition-

ers’ conspiracy involves the use of physical force, intimi-

dation and violence to prevent a protected class from

exercising their protected rights, this case does not re-

quire, as petitioners suggest, this Court to interpret 42

U.S.C. § 198513) to be a federal remedy “for all tortious

conspiratorial interferences with the rights of others.”

Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. at 101. Indeed, the ac-

tivity enjoined in this case, like the activity in Griffin, is

“so close to the core of the coverage intended by Con-

gress that it is hard to conceive of wholly private con-

duct that would come within the statute if this does not.”

403 U.S. at 103. The “terrorist” behavior of petitioners

is remarkably similar to the conspiracy of violence and

intimidation carried out by the Ku Klux Klan against

which Congress intended this statute to protect.

About 15 members of the crowd began to chase after

us, yelling, ‘Stop! ... It hit us that we were being

chased by an angry mob. Both of us are civil rights

histery buffs and at that moment we understood what

it felt like to be a black voter in Mississippi in the

1950's. There was just no telling where the mob

, would draw the line. They had attempted to block-

‘ade us in the house, lain in wait for us to try to get

out, screamed epithets at us, shoved us backward

into the crowd, away from the street, and run after

us with signs and pictures. C16.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court

of Appeals should be affirmed.

Respectfully submitted,

DAWN JOHNSEN

Counsel of Record

Lois EISNER MURPHY

Marcy J. WILDER

NATIONAL ABORTION RIGHTS

ACTION LEAGUE FOUNDATION

1101 14th Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005

(202) 408-4600 APPENDICES

May 13, 1991 Attorneys for Amici Curiae

APPENDIX A

STATEMENTS OF INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE

THE NATIONAL ABORTION RIGHTS ACTION LEA-

GUE FOUNDATION (THE NARAL FOUNDATION),

and its affiliated organizations, the National Abortion

7 Rights Action League and 41 state organizations, have

approximately 500,000 members nationwide. The

NARAL Foundation is dedicated to public education and

legal efforts to protect women’s reproductive rights, in-

cluding protecting women’s access to abortion and related

services. The NARAL Foundation recognizes that guar-

anteeing women the full range of reproductive choices is

critical to women’s health, autonomy and equality.

ABORTION RIGHTS COUNCIL OF MINNESOTA does

not seek to prohibit persons from peaceably assembling

and protesting. However, we strongly object to any at-

tempt to threaten the safety or hamper the safe passage

of clinic patients as they attempt to procure legal medical

treatment. In Saint Paul, Minnesota, last June, an il-

° legal blockade cost city taxpayers over $5,000 in wages,

equipment, and compensation to a police officer who was

injured b, protesters. We hope that the Court will con-

demn such violent, terroristic acts.

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN

(AAUW), a network of 135,000 college-educated women,

promotes equity for women and girls, education and self-

development over the lifespan and positive societal

change. The AAUW supports the right of every woman

and girl to safe and comprehensive reproductive health

care and believes access to legal abortion should be guar-

anteed to all women and girls. AAUW believes that de-

cisions concerning reproductive health care are personal

ones, and that the right to make informed decisions

should be available to all women.

AMERICAN MEDICAL WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION,

INC. (AMWA) is a nonprofit organization of 12,000

a a Le

women physicians and medical students. One of AMWA’s

primary missions is to promote quality heaith care for

women. AMWA strongly supports laws which protect the

health of women, particularly the right of the pregnant

patient, in consultation with her physician, to make a

personal and medically informed decision whether or not

to continue a pregnancy.

B’NAI B’RITH WOMEN is an organization of 100,000

Jewish women dedicated to uniting Jewish women. Since

1968, the organization has held that women should have

the right to choose for themselves on matters of repro-

duction. The organization has reaffirmed that right many

times by reiterating its opposition to any legislation that

restricts a woman’s freedom to choose whether, when or

if to bear children.

CALIFORNIA WOMEN LAWYERS is an organization

founded in 1973 for the primary purpose of improving

the situation of women in the State of California. CWL

is the largest women lawyers organization in the world,

with several thousand individual members, and speaking

for 30 women’s bar organizations in California. From its

inception, CWL’s agenda has included increasing the

numbers of women appointed to the bench, admitted to

law schools, offered jobs and partnerships in law firms,

and eliminating gender bias in the courts. It has also

been committed to all issues affecting a woman’s right to

choice, lobbying against various parental consent bills and

working with a broad-based coalition to encourage fund-

ing and support for programs supportive of choice.

CATHOLICS FOR A FREE CHOICE is an independent

national organization established in 1973. One of CFFC’s

objectives is to protect the legal right of all women and

girls to act as moral agents in decisions related to sexual-

ity and reproductive health care without coercive legal or

quasi-legal interference by reliious institutions. As

Catholics, CF FC members support policies of strict sepa-

ration of church and state based not only on the U.S.

Constitution but also on the Roman Catholic Declaration

on Religious Liberty (Vatican II Dignitatis Humanae, 7

December 1965) which declares “. . . the civil authority

must see to it that the equality of the citizens before the

law, which is itself society, is never violated, either

openly or covertly, for religious reasons and that there is

no discrimination among its citizens.”

CENTER FOR WOMEN POLICY STUDIES brings pol-

icy recommendations on the “second generation” of com-

plex reproductive rights/health issues to state legislators,

state and local judges, and advocates for choice and

women’s rights; focuses on legal «»d ethical issues sur-

rounding the new reproductive technologies and on the

effort to define a legal status for the fetus, in the context

of women’s equality and reproductive autonomy; pro-

duces Resource Collections and Policy Briefs, including

the first Resource Collection, The Law and Pregnancy:

Protection or Punishment; works with key organizations,

including the Women’s Legislative Network of the Na-

tional Conference of State Legislatures, to reach policy-

makers; continues the Reproductive Laws for the 1990s

Project, which began in 1985 under the aegis of the

Women’s Rights Litigation Clinic and the Institute for

Research on Women at Rutgers University.

COALITION OF LABOR UNION WOMEN (CLUW) is

America’s only national organization for union women,

with 75 chapters across the country and members from

more than 60 unions. CLUW pursues the goals of the

labor movement, fighting for decent wages and working

conditions and a stronger voice for working people in

society. CLUW strives to make organized labor and the

public in general more sensitive to the needs of working

women. By convention resolution, CLUW supports the

right of every woman to make reproductive choices free

from government interference and supports access to a

full range of health care and family planning serices,

without restrictions.

EQUAL RIGHTS ADVOCATES, INC. (ERA) is a San

Franciso-based public interest legal and educational cor-

poration dedicated to working through the legal system

to end discrimination against women. It has a long his-

tory of interest, activism and advocacy in all areas of the

law that affect equality between the sexes. ERA believes

that the right to control one’s reproductive life is funda-

mental to women’s ability to gain equality in other as-

pects of society.

FEMINIST MAJORITY FOUNDATION is a _ national

educational and research organization which works for

women’s equality and reproductive freedom and against

sex discrimination. The Feminist Majority Foundation

runs the Clinic Defense Project in Los Angeles, Califor-

nia to protect the right of women to seek unimpeded

health care at clinics.

LAMBDA LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION

FUND, INC., founded in 1973, is the nation’s oldest and

largest national legal advocacy organization working in

furtherance of the rights of lesbians and gay men. As

an organization representing the lesbian and gay com-

munity’s belief in the constitutional right to liberty and

bodily autonomy, Lambda strongly supports the position

that women in our society are constitutionally entitled to

make their own decisions about whether to choose abor-

tion.

The purpose of the MEXICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION is to promote and enhance

the social, economic, political and educational advance-

ment of Hispanic women.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COMMISSIONS FOR

WOMEN is an organization which seeks to eliminate all

forms of discrimination. We believe that all persons have

the right to make their own choices about medical care

and procedures and should have access to such care with-

out being subject to harmful intimidation and harass-

ment.

THE NATIONAL BLACK WOMEN’S HEALTH PROJ-

ECT (NBWHP) is a:self-help, health education and ad-

vocacy organization which works to improve the health

status and quality of life for African American women and

their families. It consists of 150 developing and estab-

lished chapters in 25 states serving a broad constituency

of approximately 2,000 members. The NBWHP is deeply

concerned about barriers that impede or prevent access to

quality health services, including abortion. The already

poor health status of low income African American

women, due in part to lack of access to health care, is

further exacerbated by the hostility, intimidation, and

harm caused by clinic blockades. The NBWHP joins this

brief to voice its opposition to the violent and harmful

actions and tactics of Operation Rescue which prevents

African American women from exercising their right.

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN (NCJW),

founded in 1893, is the oldest Jewish women’s volunteer

organization in America. NCJW’s 100,000 members in

more than 200 Sections across the United States keep the

organization’s promise to dedicate themselves, in the

spirit of Judaism, to advancing human welfare and the

democratic way of life through a combination of social

action, eduvation and community service. Based on

NCJW’s concern for individual rights and our National

Resolutions which include working for “the protection of

every female’s right to choose abortion, and the elimina- _

tion of obstacles that limit reproductive freedom,” we join

this brief.

The NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BUSINESS AND

PROFESSIONAL WOMEN’S CLUBS, INC. (BPW/

USA) is a membership organization of working women

with a mission to promote “full participation, equity and

economic self-sufficiency for working women.”

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN OF COLOR

advocates the right of women of color to exercise freedom

of choice in decisions relating to our reproductive health

needs. This includes the decision to seek an abortion.

Public clinics serve a large portion of low-income women

and women of color are disproportionately represented

in this group. Therefore, it is imperative that access to

services provided by the clinics not be denied to women

of color, curtailing our rights of choice and access to

health care.

NATIONAL WOMEN’S CONFERENCE COMMITTEE

serves as the only body currently constituted under Pub-

lic Law 94-167 to monitor and implement the 1977 Na-

tional Plan of Action for Women. We work with the

Council of Presidents nationally and with 30 statewide

networks to address issues in that plan, approved by a

democratically representative group from every state and

territory; item #21, “Reproductive Freedom” states,

“We support the US Supreme Court decisions which

guarantee reproductive freedom to women. We urge

all branches of Federal, State, and local governments to

give the highest priority to complying with these Su-

preme Court decisions and to make available all methods

of family planning to women. . .”

NATIONAL WOMEN’S HEALTH NETWORK is a non-

profit advocacy group concerned with the status of

women’s health. Our membership is composed of 11,000

individuals, many of whom could be directly, and ad-

versely, affected by the lack of free access to reproductive

health facilities.

NATIONAL WOMEN’S PARTY includes freedom of re-

productive choice as an issue on its agenda.

NATIONAL WOMEN’S POLITICAL CAUCUS (NWPC)

is a nonprofit organization supporting the appointment

and election of women to public office. NWPC also sup-

ports legislative initiatives at the state and national

levels to insure fairness and equity for all Americans.

NORTHWEST WOMEN’S LAW CENTER is a non-

profit, membership organization in Seattle, Washington,

that works to advance legal rights for women through

litigation, legislation, education and providing free legal

information and referrals. The Law Center has done

extensive work in the area of reproductive rights, in-

cluding litigation against Operation Rescue in which the

Law Center obtained a permanent injunction against

blockaders in Washington State. That case is now on

appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

VOTERS FOR CHOICE is an independent and bi-par-

tisan political action committee. In order to preserve

safe, legal and accessible abortion services for all women,

regardless of geographic location, age or economic status,

Voters Fox Choice works to elect pro-choice candidates

to federal and state public offices.

The WOMEN’S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR

PEACE AND FREEDOM (WILPF) has been working

since 1915 to unite women to oppose war, exploitation

and oppression. WILPF stands for equality of all people

in a world free of racism and sexism; building a con-

structive world through peace and disarmament; and

changing government priorities to meet human needs.

WIDER OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN has worked

nationally and in Washington, DC, for twenty-seven years

to achieve economic independence and equality of oppor-

tunity for women and girls. WOW has a solid track

record of achieving advances for women in economic

policies, employment practices and employment training

programs. As an organization committed to improving

the economic status of women, WOW is deeply concerned

that women’s reproductive rights be protected, as well as

their health and well-being.

WOMEN’S MEDICAL FUND, INC. has assisted thou-

sands of indigent and needy women to obtain abortion

care through its volunteer charity, a tax-exempt fund.

Some of the women we have helped, like U.S. women

everywhere, have experienced violence, harassment, taunts,

indignities and needless trauma in their effort to exer-

cise their legal and moral right to choose abortion.

The YALE JOURNAL OF LAW AND FEMINISM is

committed to publishing pieces about women’s experi-

ences, especially as they have been structured, affected,

controlled, discussed, and ignored by the law. These ex-

periences include the particular experiences of women

of color and lesbians; they include rape, battery, sexual

abuse and harassment, reproductive slavery, isolation,

powerlessness, and oppression; and they include experi-

ences of sexual and reproductive agency, community,

power, and freedom. Too often, people have neither

believed accounts of nor printed pieces about these ex-

periences. The Journal prints them because it seeks to

provide a forum for voices too seldom—perhaps never—

heard.

ZERO POPULATION GROWTH is a national, nonprofit

organization with 35,000 members. Founded in 1968, it

is working to achieve a sustainable balance between the

earth’s population, environment and resources. The or-

ganization supports voluntary efforts to stabilize popula-

tion growth through education and advocacy programs,

APPENDIX B

LETTERS FROM WOMEN AND THEIR SUPPORTERS

WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED THE USE OF FORCE, VIO-

LENCE, AND INTIMIDATION IN ATTEMPTS TO PRE-

VENT WOMEN FROM EXERCISING THEIR RIGHT TO

TRAVEL AND OBTAINING THE SERVICES OF MEDI-

CAL FACILITIES THAT PERFORM ABORTIONS.

The texts set forth herein are the complete transcrip-

tions of the letters quoted in part in the brief of Amici

Curiae.’ Additional letters are lodged with the court.

LETTER—C1

My name is | }. As a member of the Washington

Area Clinic defense Task Force, I have been a clinic

escort at area abortion clinics experiencing harassment

by Operation “Rescue” for nearly two years. During

this time, I have witnessed numerous incidences of ex-

tremely intimidating behavior, and in some cases violence,

by “rescuers” at various clinics.

One particularly awful experience was an attack by

OR and affiliated groups on Hillview Clinic in Suitland,

Maryland, on November 18, 1989. One antiabortiun pro-

tester smashed through a plate-glass window in the

front of the building in an early attempt to get inside

the clinic to blockade and/or vandalize it. Nearly 800

members of Operation “Rescue” descended on the clinic,

and pro-choice volunteers were unable for quite some

time to get patients into the clinic.

Two patients were waiting in a “safe van” provided

by pro-choice people. These two women were there for

the second day of a two-day surgical abortion procedure,

in which a delay of the second day’s surgery (following

an injection given the day before) can threaten the pa-

' The texts of these letters are reproduced as originally written,

maintaining any errors in punctuation, spelling, or grammar.

10a

tient’s reproductive system and her life. Hillview clinic

is the only clinic facility in the Washington area which

performs such procedures, and these women could not

affiord the cost of a hospital procedure.

This was not something which concerned the “pro-

life” people in the least, however. They descended on

the van like locusts and screamed every epithet in the

book, calling the women murderers, raving about blood

and bones and death, and waving grotesque photographs.

The women were in tears. A circle of pro-choice people

formed around the van to keep the antis away from the

women, and we were forced to stand there, arms linked,

for over three hours. The women were trapped in the

Van.

When it became apparent that things would not clear

out for some time, the women in the van were taken

elsewhere to wait and decide what they wanted to do.

As the van attempted to pull out of the parking lot, OR

members once again swarmed in from of it and on top

of it, jumping in front of the van, and holding signs in

front of the driver’s windshield, making driving ex-

tremely dangerous.

The women in the van were not able to return to the

clinic until 7 p.m. that evening. Fortunately, no serious

complications resulted, but not only were they intimi-

dated, threatened, and verbally abused by Operation

“Rescue,” their lives and health were put in danger.

I was also an escort during an Operation “Rescue”

attack on Richmond Medical Center for Women in Rich-

mond, Virginia, in April of 1990. At one point, an OR

“sidewalk counselor” began to chase a patient through

the residential streets as she attempted to make her way

to the clinic. The patient was literally running at top

speed and pleading with the OR member to leave her

alone, but the “counselor” continued the chase. Two

other clinic escorts reached the woman, who grabbed

onto their arms and ran with them to the clinic.

lla

There was yet another assault on D.C. area clinics on

November 1991. Capital Women’s Center, at 22nd & O

Streets N.W. in Washington, was blockaded by OR on

the final day of the hits. Several neighborhood residents

volunteered their house so that patients could wait in

privacy and safety while the police arrested OR members

and cleared the area.

Unfortunately, OR people figured out where the safe

house was and began to surround it, trying to climb

up on the porch, peer inside, trying to open the windows

(the door was locked) and so forth. Pro-choice volun-

teers were once again forced to form a human wall in

front of the house to protect the patients. When the

patients were escorted out by pro-choice volunteers and

police, the antis tried to chase after them, grabbed at

them, and screamed at them.

I have heard all sorts of horrible things shouted by

Operation “Rescue” members at women who are going

into clinics. One man yelled at a black woman, “You

bitch . . . they’re going to kill your little black baby.”

They call women murderers, tell them they’re possessed

by Satan and are going to hell. If a woman has a child

with her, they will say, “What a beautiful baby. Do

you want to kill this one too?”

Patients, clinic staff, and clinic directors have been

followed home by Operation “Rescue” and harassed in

their neighborhoods and by phone. O.R. claims to want

to help women, but anyone who has seen them in action

knows that is a lie. They are abusive, intimidating, and

cruel to women.

LETTER—C2

My encounters with anti-choice protestors began the

weekend after the April 9, 1989 pro-choice march in

Washington, D.C. I and other members of N.O.W. be-

came “escorts” at an abortion clinic, Women’s Com-

12a

munity Health Center, at the request of the staff. The

way the clinic was situated, the protestors could stand

right im front of their door and annoy the patients, We,

more or less, acted as a buffer between the patients and

the protestors. We continued this service for a little over

a year until the clinic moved to a location where, al-

though the protestors are still there, it was not practical

for us to be there. Believe it or not, the doctor next

door (an OB/GYN physician by the name of [ })

allows the anti-choice protestors to stand in his parking

lot which adjoins the abortion clinic, and harass the pa-

tients of Dr. [ ], the abortion provider.

Fortunately we have not had “operation rescue” type

of problems here—yet. What I have witnessed, besides

the usual “preaching” about Jesus and pleading with

the patients to not murder their babies, spreading lies

and showing little plastic models of babies and bringing

little babies of all colors to the clinic for the patients to

view as they go in the door, is the protestors photograph-

ing each patient as she goes in the abortion clinic. I

actually saw one protestor continue to photograph two

women even after the women had hold him to NOT take

their picture. As a matter of fact the protestor, after

being told to not take the ladies picture, smirked as he

continued to take snapshots.

Of course, the protestors took our pictures and would

even try to sneak a recorder in their pocket and get close

to us to record what we were saying. Whenever we

have an event, the anti-choice people manage to take our

pictures and record what we say—all of which is okey

with us.

It might also interest you to know that there was an

office next door to the clinic (provided free by the owner

of the building or very cheap) occupied by a so-called

crisis pregnancy center. Patients of the clinic were often

enticed in to this office for free pregnancy tests and anti-

abortion movies and literature. Many times the patients

13a

did not immediately that they were not in the abortion

clinic.

I must ask: if our opposition’s cause is so righteous,

why do they have to lies and harassment?

LETTER—C3

I have had numerous experiences with anti-abortion

activities as an activist, a patient and as the Executive

Director of an abortion facility. On one occasion I even

went into a “fake clinic” to affirm all I had heard about

their terroristic treatment of women seeking abortion.

“In [| ], in recent years, the anti-abortion folks

have limited their activities to photographing women

entering clinics, recording license plate numbers, hate

mail, the display of late term fetuses in clinic driveways

and, of course, deceiving women into coming to their

offices which advertise under the auspices of being actual

medical facilities. Several years ago, Dr. [ ], my

current employer, was set up by the antis to be hit by

his car. In that same time period a priest chained him-

self to our clinic door and others invaded the clinic at-

tempting to destroy the property and abortion equipment.

Arrests were made for the invasion and prosecution was

successful. With regard to the allegation of the anti-

abortion activists that Dr. [ ] “hit” them with his

car, the judge considered it ironic that a cohort hap-

pened to have a video camera to record the scene. The

antis tried to drop the charges. Dr. [ ] countersued

and won. No picketing has taken place at this facility

since. Worth noting in humor—the last attempt they

made to picket, it was determined they had to exercise

their free speech outside of our private drive on a grassy

area. Dr. | ] promptly had a sprinkler system

installed. After a couple of showers, they left this clinic

alone. 7

Though the previous paragraph mentions the “limited”

nature of current activities, [ ] Family Planning

l4a

Services, the clinic I direct, has received several forms of

vandalism, including a gun shot through a window that

caused the entire window to shatter. There has also been

one bomb threat on January 20.

In May of 1989 I went with a freelance journalist into

a Crisis Pregnancy Clinie located immediately next door

to a | ! abortion facility. As I was entering a pro-

choice escort said to me, “Ma’am, you are not entering a

legitimate abortion clinic.” A woman who had been hold-

ing open the door to the “clinic” since I had opened my

car door said, “Yes we are. Come right on in.” She

asked my name and acted as if she was checking it off

of an appointment book. She took the urine I brought; it

belonged to a pregnant friend. She then had me fill out

the equivalent of what one would normally expect in a

medical office. After completing the form, she said I,

with my friend, had to view a film before I would be

allowed to proceed any further. The film began as if it

was a simple educational film to make certain I, the al-

leged patient, was aware of the risks with abortion, ete.

Suddenly, before my very eyes, I witness an abortion in

which the patient on the procedure table is jerking, as if

she was receiving electric shock therapy or having an

epileptic seizure. Blood was spattering everywhere as the

physician was repetitively inserting a long tube into the

patient’s vagina; quickly and each time his arm would

extend about two feet into the air before entering her

vagina again. Then I viewed Dr. Wilke of National

Right to Life fame speak of the “killing” I had just

witnessed.

NARAL may be more interest in blockades, ete. The

aforementioned is what happens on a day to day basis in

[ ]. Terrorized women, fraudulently advertised to,

entering “fake clinics” and before they realize where they

really are, they have given their name, address and phone

number.

lda

As an escort I have observed anti-abortion picketers

photographing all people who enter clinics. I know of one

particular instance in which an anti recorded the license

plate number, got the name of the owner and called to

preach on the evils of abortion. Sadly, the person who

owned the car was the mother of # woman who had not

confided her pregnancy to her family.

Everything worked out fine but temporarily destroyed

the relationship between mother and daughter. The

daughter had been impregnated by the mother’s boy-

friend. While the patient did not consider her pregnancy

a result of rape, she maintained that the mother’s hoy-

friend had taken advantage of her when she arrived

home in a drunken state. The incident was the only sex-

ual contact of any sort for the patient in months.

The antis routinely place photos of fetuses on the wind-

shields of cars parked at abortion facilities. They also

force literature upon women as they get out of their cars

to enter the clinies. The antis literally yell at women

such things as, “Lady, don’t kill your baby.” and “We

will pray for you not to go to the Devil.” On several

occasions anti-abortion activists have parked numerous

cars in clinic parking lots, forcing women to park further

away, thus enabling the antis a better opportunity to

propagandize, They apparently schedule their “parking

duties” in increments of 15-30 minutes because clinics

have been unable to prove this. In many instances, one

anti will park and another will drive her, him away.

I know my comments are of little help to your argu-

ment. However, I want you to know, there is so much I

suspect but am unable to prove. I have driven into the

parking lot of my job to find that our dumpster has been

raided, etc. While Arkansas has been rather fortunate in

terms of clinie blockades, we do have a fair amount of

horrendous anti-abortion activity going on. I always

refer back to the fake clinics because with each new edi-

tion of a phone book I learn of the proliferation of their

l6a

fraud (in the name of Christianity) by ads being placed

under the “Abortion” heading. Communities with limited

access to healthcare in general and college and metropoli-

tan areas appear to be the primary target of the crisis

or problem pregnancy businesses. I know of a recent in-

stance involving a 34 year old woman who had already

lost custody of two children fathered by two different

men. She was a cocaine addict wanting an abortion. On

three separate occasions, a crisis pregnancy center told

her was not pregnant. They kept suggesting she had a

“tumor” in her uterus. By the time she made it the

clinic I direct, she was 23 weeks. She now has a sickly

two month old girl, no job, no knowledge of who the

father is and, unfortunately, a grim future.

Please feel free to contact me if I can be of assistance.

Keep up the hard work!!

+ * . .

LETTER—C4

I have worked at a doctor’s office specializing in abor-

tion for nearly ten years. I have dealt with anti-abortion

activity and Operation Rescue in particular in almost

every capacity; as a staff person, as an escort, as friend

of patient, as a participant in many court cases—pretty

much, you name it, I’ve been involved. Add to that the

fact that our office is in the city where OR originated

‘we were the first place Randall Terry ever picketed)

and it should be obvious that I have seen every type of

intimidation and belligerence these people use in their

attemts to control women’s lives.

So—some “pithy” examples:

Twice (6/2/86 and again later that year) our private

parking lot was filled with cars belonging to OR mem-

bers, parked tightly togethet and locked to prevent us

from opening our dooor and getting patients in. I took

several hours for them to be towed; we did enjoy stomp-

ing around on the hoods a lot.

17a

We had one real “Rescue” on 10/28/88. One hundred

and fifty people sat in front of our door, some locked

and chained together, in an attempt to keep the door

shut, keep patients out, and harass and intimidate them.

They resisted arrest and had to be dragged onto buses by

the police.

Several times Randall Terry has invaded our waiting

room, either alone or with a few cohorts, to “preach” and

pass out “literature”, often because he recognized a pa-

tient and wanted to harass her personally.

OR members standing at the edge of our parking lot

have been heard to yell to patients “She’s not a real

doctor”, “The ambulances takes dead women away from

here all the time”, ‘‘You’ll never be able to have children

again”, “Your baby will feel pain and scream”, “They’re

going to stick a metal tube inside you with jagged edges

and crush everything”, “They’re going to put your baby

through a meat grinder” etc. ad nauseum

Staff have been harassed at home and in public—OR

has picketed homes and restaurants where staff are

eating.

Our locks have been glued shut several times. OR pick-

eters have recognized patients and followed them into the

office and then called and harassed them at home.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen a patient

come in crying, near hysteria, totally intimidated by the

OR picketers. Or the times patients have called from

nearby, too frightened by protestors to even enter the

parking lot. Or the times patients attempting to pull into

the lot have had the way blocked by picketers refusing to

move, so left and then called to say they couldn’t handle

it.

This is only a small part of what I have seen and

heard. Feel free to contact me for more info or specifics,

or if I can be helpful in any way.”

a * * *

18a

LETTER—C5

I am the Personnel director of the [ | Women’s

Health Center. After three years of constant picketing

and blockading, the | | Women’s Health Center

was invaded on October 24th, 1989. The invasion into

our building was a frightening escalation of tactics by

the anti-abotrion activists. Praying on our compassion,

two women pretending to be harrassed by the protesters

on the sidewalk, sought refuge in our building. Once the

locked door was open, 39 men and 13 women charged out

of a moving van and stormed into the [] WHC, knocking

me to the waiting room floor.

While I was trying to reach the telephone, a man bodily

trapped me while I watched hordes of people invade the

building. I feared for the safety of the staff. I envisioned

the damage and destruction to our property. Fortunately,

some of the staff on the 2nd floor were alerted to the

assault by the thunder of footsteps on the porch. They

immediately locked the fire doors at the top of the stairs,

effectively confining these individuals to the stairwell.

There the staff remained, safely sealed from the attackers.

A patient was trapped in the counseling room adjoin-

ing the ocecupied hallway. She had come to the Health

Center that day for further screening of an abnormal

pap smear to determine if she had cervical cancer. Staff

was unab'e to reach her. She was alerted through the

intercom that the building had been invaded and that the

police were on their way. When three men entered the

room she bravely told them to get out and leave her alone.

Police soon arrived to escort her to safety.

It took 6 hours to remove the intruders who had bicycle

locked their necks together. As [ | police attempted

to remove these people, they struggled. Two policemen

were iniured in the process. Others were called Nazis.

That afternoon most patients were contacted and re-

scheduled for the next day. Those we couldn’t reach ar-

19a

rived and were abused by individuals outside who climbed

on their cars yelling and screaming “we are here to help

you”. Over the long hours of the afternoon I personally

endured vicious name calling and was subjected to their

hateful behavior. A man calling himself Father Baby

John Doe kicked me. I felt violated and assaulted in my

own building. Like any cycle of battering, after being

abused, assaulted and violated, their leader Michael

McHugh, thinking this to be a righteous act turns and

winks, stating, “we really love you people”.

These fanatics reveal their true agenda. They demon-

strated their disregard of women’s health and well being.

This becomes evident when they shout to a women in the

driveway “You should die, not your baby.” These are

individuals who disrespect the integrity of a woman’s

conscience and care little about her life or her family’s

life.

Despite continued harassment, battering and the

promised acceleration of these violent actions, the staff

at WHC is resolved to continue to provide women with

the quality care they deserve.

* * * *

LETTER—C7

I have volunteered to write a letter to you addressing

the behavior of Operation Rescue supporters I observed

while acting as a “defender” of a Planned Parenthood

Clinic during the “DC Project II” in November 1990 as

requested by the NARAL Foundation here in DC.

The most outstanding characteristic of the Operation

Rescue participants that I felt was the feeling of a tre-

mendous wall of water waiting for the dam to break.

Clearly, no one knew any plan of action, but were simply

waiting for someone to say the word to stampede. There

was no central organization other than one person with

a walkie-talkie. Early in the morning, there was a large

crowd gathering across the street from the Planned Par-

20a

enthood facility. They began shouting and chanting,

many pacing back and forth. Some would choose a single

person in the defender line to direct intimidating verbal

attacks. Others simply damned the lot of us to Hell.

Those that participated in verbal assaults encouraged

others to do the same, often chiding their cohorts if they

were reluctant to speak. Police came at some point and

put up a police line, but to no avail. A signal was given

and much of the crowd crossed the street. There wus a

period of time when Operation Rescue participants

pressed up against the tape and the defenders, sometimes

trying to crawl through people’s legs. At no point after

the crowd shifted across the street was there a break in

the pressure of the Operation Rescue participants, until

a signal was given and the crowd left the area.

The Planned Parenthood Clinic was the target of a

minor hit that day, but I have never been in a more

threatening situation. I was thankful that I wasn’t in-

volved in the more intense “scuffles” of the day.

e 7 - *

LETTER—C8 *

I am the project coordinator of the | ], a project

of the [ ]. We are a non-profit volunteer organiza-

tion which defends women’s health care clinics from Op-

eration Rescue.

In my two years of organizing abortion-rights activists

to counter Operation Rescue blockades, I have seen

dozens of incidents of harassment, physical violence. and

just plain cruelty directed at the women (and often times

men) who need to get into these clinics; not just to re-

ceive abortion services I might add, but for the myriad of

other Services they provide—pap smears and cancer

screening, prenatal care, VD testing, AIDS testings, preg-

nancy testing, ete.

There is however one experience I would like to relate

to you which stands out in my mind; one which illustrates

2la

not only the sheer meanness and unprovoked nature of

Operation Rescue’s tactics, but the pain and suffering

they cause others.

In the summer of 1990, we received a call from the

[ | clinie located in East L.A.; a primarily low-

income Hispanic neighborhood. These neighborhoods are

favorite targets of Operation Rescue due to the fact that

their residents have few health-care options available to

them. Not only had this clinic been blockaded on several

occasions in the past, but they were experiencing heavy

picketing by Operation Rescue on the weekends as well.

A priest by the name of Father [ ] was bringing out

his church group—composed primarily of young teen-

agers—and instructing them to harass the women enter-

ing the clinic.

The clinic’s doctor, Dr. [ ], shared office space with

a dentist by the name of Dr. | }. On Saturady morn-

ings, Dr. [ ] arranged for a dentist who specialized

in children’s dentistry to use his office so as to service

the disadvantaged children of the area. The picketers

were disrupting Dr. [ ]’s practice as well.

One Saturday, while the specialist was working at the

office, a woman in the company of her two children ap-

proached the clinic. They were met by a frenzy of hostile

picketers who shoved at them photographs of what they

claimed were aborted fetuses and screamed at the mother,

“Don’t kill your baby!” The fact that the woman was

there to see the children’s dentist did not phase the

picketers and they continued to harass and block her

entrance into the clinic. Members of the center’s staff

had to step outside to help her in.

However once inside, the children were hysterical, cry-

ing out, “Mommy, don’t kill us!”

As you might imagine, everyone involved—the mother,

the children, the doctor and his staff—were terribly upset

by the incident. The situatian at the clinic continued on

22a

this way for several months with little help from the local

police. It finally ended when the priest and his church

group decided to move on to another clinic. Currently,

they are harassing women at a health care facility located

in | ], another low-income Hispanic area. The

[ ] clinic, its patients and its staff, are experiencing

the same kind of terror and frustration as were the folks

in | a,

The sad fact is, we can expect these types of situations

to repeat themselves until you make it clear to member

of Operation Rescue that behavior such as this will not

be tolerated in a society which claims to care about its

citizenry and their right to safe access to medical care.

Please, in reviewing the Bray v. Alexandria Women’s

Health Clinie case, keep in mind who Operation Rescue

really is; their anti-woman agenda and the illeval tacties

they employ. Most importantly, consider the people who

are made to suffer the greatest; the poor and disadvan-

tage of our community who have so few options to choose

from, and who utilize women’s health care facilities for

the variety of services they provide.

* -_ * -_

LETTER—C9

In November 1989 I was at the [ |] Clinie in [ ]

Maryland when Operation Rescue blockaded the building.

Many incidents happened that were disturbing. The

O.R. people followed a young woman across the street to

her car and surrounded it. They then shouted at her

shoving gory pictures of “fetuses” and plastic fetus-like

dolls at the windows. At the clinic they encircled several

of the clinic escorts, myself included, and pushed us away

from the door back into the parking lot. People vied for

the building doors and several clinic escorts were shoved

into the plate glass windows and received cuts from the

confrontation.

23a

While the shoving and pushing was bad enough, the

yelling and the taunts never stopped. They were an ex-

tremely persistent group and showed no respect even for

very small children. A mother with her two children

were simply walking by the clinic and cam up to find out

what was going on when the O.R. people shouted at the

woman and showed bloody pictures to her children who

were horrified. The woman was very angry and upset

and left the scene saying she would remain pro-choice.

It was a disturbing incident—in fact, the whole day was

very upsetting.

LETTER—C12

Enclosed are my notes on the events that occurred on

November 12, 1988.

At 9:10 a.m. my husband, girlfriend and I arrived at

the Bellegrove Orifice Park. We entered the main doorway

and saw a group of people in front of the entrance to my

doctor’s office. Whem we approached this people, we

noticed that they all had signs around their necks. The

group consisted of approximately 1-12 people with a man

in front stretching his arms and legs from wall to wall.

When we reached the group, the front man said, “The

doctor will not be seeing you today.”

“Why,” I asked.

Because he kills babies for money,” he answered.

“He also delivers babies for money,” by husband said.

I said, “I have to have a test at exactly 9:15 this

morning, would you please let me in.”

“If you need emergency care, go to the hospital,” he

answered.

“T am not here to have an abortion.”

“We don’t care.”

24a

My husband was going to force our way through, but

at their very physical resistance, I asked him to stop.

I slept very poorly the night before this occurred. I was

having a lot of problems with hypoglycemia during my

pregnancy with terrible headaches occuring when I didn’t

eat. I usually had to get up at least once during the

night to eat to avoid these migraines. I had already

endured a lot to be ready for this test and I did not want

to go through it all again. After going through not eat-

ing, drinking high-sucrose liquid, the beginnings of a

migraine and no sleep (not to mention being 7 months

pregnant! this confrontation brought me to tears. As It

was Saturady, my husband and girlfriend were there to

comfort me. That was fortunate as I usually came alone

to these exams.

Another patient came and led us around to the back

entrance of the doctor’s office. I was still very upset and

was trying to calm myself down. I mentioned that I was

here for the diabetes test and then went and waited in

the lobby for a few minutes. There were three other

women present in the lobby at that time.

My husband and I went into the exam room for my

test. We had made a Saturday appointment specifically

to discuss some important issues with my doctor, but due

to the circumstances, it did not seem appropriate to bring

these issues up at this time. He was visibly upset by this

demonstration. This affected our doctor-patient relation-

ship. After the test and my exam; my husband, girl-

friend and I approached the back exit to leave. By this

time there were lots of protesters outside. All three en-

trances were blocked by approximately 20 people each.

I tried to open the door and they wouldn’t move. They

looked at us and started singing Christian hymns. I

banged on the door and yelled at them, “You're not going

to let us leave?!” To this, one person simply waved his

hand at us and they went on singing and praying and

25a

swaying. I just stood there amazed, I couldn’t believe

they were imprisoning us inside the building.

I was feeling fairly shaky and starting to be light-

headed by this point. The nurse offered me some tea,

which I declined because I didn’t want the caffeine, and

I asked if they had any crackers. She got me some water

and triscuits. I returned to the waiting room to wait

and eat and try and deal with the anger I was feeling. I

couldn’t eat much because my stomach was so tied up

in knots and the food was making me sick. My doctor

was concerned about me and he offered to call an am-

bulance for me, thinking surely these people would let

an ambulance through. I felt uncomfortable with that

idea though as I was not having a medical emergency

at that time.

We sat in the waiting room with a woman from

NARAL and two other women. We discussed what we

should do. The doctor called the police department again

and asked them what they were doing about this situa-

tion. The | |} P.D. had only 6 police officers on

duty which they did not feel were enough to confront

this situation and so they were calling in another shift.

Meanwhile, we would just have to wait.

My husband then called 911 and asked for a police

escort out of the building. Then another patient called

%11 and did the same. Finally, after another 10 minutes

of nothing happening, I called 911 and said that we

were still waiting for our police escort. The dispatcher

said that they were doing everything they could and we

needed to just be patient and wait. Luckily our two-

year-old daughter was with her grandparents and not

with us as this would have been extremely traumatic for

her. As it was, they were expecting us shortly and we

couldn't reach them to tell them what was going on.

Time passed, with much pacing and speculation, and

finally at approximately 10:30 to 10:45 (1 1 2 hours

26.4

after we arrived) the crowd in the front entrance sep-

arated and a man came down the stairs. We had locked

the door to keep the protesters out, just in case. This

man said that he was a police officer here to escort “the

pregnant woman” out.

We asked to see his badge. He presented it and then

I told him that would not leave unless everyone in the

lobby who wanted to could leave with me. He asked

the crowd if everyone could leave. They agreed and we

filed out. The crowd called out things like, “God Bless

You,” and “We love you.” At this point I was very

mad and turned and said, “Bullshit!” Not knowing what

else to do, we walked to our car.

This was very anticlimatic to us as we were all so

mad at having our rights violated and being held hostage

for such a long period of time. The news crews didn’t

ask for any statements from the people held in the office

and that evening the news didn’t even mention the fact

that we were kept hostage by these people. It was very

frustrating for us, because we felt that the public didn’t

know what these people were really capable of. My hus-

band and I couldn’t forget about it for quite awhile and

were very tense and preoccupied. This caused our

daughter, a high-need child, to feel very upset and we

had quite a few bad moments. My husband and I fought

a lot that evening, something that doesn’t usually happen

due to this upsetting using situation. I also broke 4

crystal goblets that evening because I was too preoccu-

pied to be thinking clearly.

These people have every right, in m ini

é nt, y opinion, to ex-

press their points of view. I deeply believe in our con-

stitutional rights to freedom of speech. However, they

do not have the right to infringe on my rights or put my

unborn child at risk. Due to the circumstances I was

very upset; and at 7 months pregnant, my doctor felt

that an early labor could have been brought on by such

27a

a situation. I have to say that I feel that these people

are hypocrites. If anything, this demonstration by Oper-

ation Rescue has made me much more determined to see

that women’s rights are protected from people such as

these.

Good luck in your efforts. If I can be of any future

assistance, please feel free to contact me.

LETTER—C13

As a volunteer escort, since April 1988, I could tell

you numerous stories about Operation Rescue, it’s affil-

iates and anti-choice “counselors” who go out to abor-

tion clinics. I will relate three brief anecdotes in the

hope that it will shed some light on the problems these

people present.

First, in April 1988 I was exiting a 14 story building

which housed on it’s third floor an abortion clinic. Out-

side were approximately 10 anti-choice demonstrators.

As I walked out the door, one of the protestors threw a

rock which hit me solidly on the neck. This single event

pointed out to me the necessity of assisting women in

getting into clinics without harassment.

Another highlight event occurred around Thanks

giving of 1988. A young woman (approximately 16

years old) and her mother asked me and another escort

to escort them into an abortion clinic where there were

about 20-30 “sidewalk counselors” and protestors pres-

ent. As we approached the building, 7 or 8 anti-abor-

tion “sidewalk counselors” rushed up to the young woman,

screaming “don’t kill your baby”, and waving literature

and physically separating the young woman from her

mother. The young patent became so frightened, that

she threw her arms around my neck and jumped up

into my arms. I put may arms around the patient and,

as I di so, the back or my hand brushed the coat of

one of the sidewalk hasslers. The sidewalk hassler began

28a

screaming that I had assaulted her. As I was literally

carrying the terrifiec patient to the door of the building,

the “counselor” was screaming at the police to arrest me.

Fortunately, there were enough witnesses that the police

did not arrest me.

Finally, on Dee. 2, 1989, “Project Rescue” was as-

sembling in a shopping plaza to go, as a group, to a

Maryland clinic. The people coordinating the “rescue”

standing in front of Mr. G/ l’s van. He knew that

I was a pro-choice escort Mr. G{ | decided that it

was time to leave and began driving. As the van ap-

proached me, in a panic, I pushed back against it. A

nearby police officer ordered Mr. G{ ] to stop. Con-

tinuing forward, Mr. G| | screamed “No we have

to go rescue babies.” Meanwhile, about 15 other pro-

choice friends ran up and tried ‘o lift the front of the

van to prevent it from running me over. The police

officer then slammed his hand on the top of the van and

again ordered Mr. G/ | to stop. This time Mr.

G| | did stop. I was pregnant at the time this

took place. This caused me to have some early pregnancy

spotting.

LETTER—CI4

This letter regards the upcoming case of Bray v. Alex-

andria Women’s Health Ciinic. 1 feel compelled to write

regarding my experience av a clinic escort who has wit-

nessed the tactics of Operation Rescue and similar or-

ganizations.

From my experience in clinic defense, I am convinced

that the agenda of Operation Rescue and similar organi-

zations is not to exercise free speech, rather it is to bully

and intimidate women from utilizing clinic services, serv-

ices ranging from contraceptives, prenatal care, annual

check-ups, pap smears, and breast exams to abortions.

29a

Furthermore, there exists no doubt in my mind that they

intentionally target women who are in a vulnerable posi-

tion because they perceive women as easy marks and a

convenient medium to advance their dictates of social

behavior. The actions of Operation Rescue clearly demon-

strate that the overall agenda of Operation Rescue is to

scapegoat women for perceived social ills. From a spring

board of moral arrogance, Operation Rescue feels em-

powered to accost women as they approach clinies and

further subject these women to an invasion of privacy

and public humiliation. Operation Rescue hopes to scare

women away with such tactics. Furthermore, Operation

Rescue does not care why a woman is going into a clinic.

They use the clinic location as a venue to berate women

and to attack any woman who does not fit their profile

of how women should behave.

ical intimidation and verbal assault are the pri-

oat Gk employed against women by anti-abortion

groups. They refrain from accosting men on public

streets to demand persona! information on pregnancy

states, marital status, religion, or his: Sex life. Instead

they assail women. A woman approaching a clinic is first

surrounded by anti-choice demonstrators who shout at her

to be heard over one another. If she tries to get away

from them or says that she is not interested they persist

in following, pressing themselves on her, and blocking her

every step in order to continue their rebuke and deluge

of contempt. Recently I witnessed a so called ‘pro-lifer

hiss at a woman who was trying to extricate herself from

a group of the blockaders, “Murderer, Murderer, Mur-

derer. Kill, Kill, Kill.”

ivacy and dignity of women is completely dis-

A with every clinic blockade. That this kind of

behavior has been condoned is unacceptable; that women

specifically must bear the rage and contempt of Operation

rescue should no longer be endured.

30a

LETTER—C16

I write to describe my experiences as a patient escort

for the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force. .1

have selected three of the most drastic circumstances in

which I have found myself since I joined WACDTF last

year.

The first violent experience I had with an Operation

Rescue member was in the Fall of 1990 a the DC Project

II “rescue”. I had arrived at Planned Parenthood by

Dupont circle at 5:00 a.m. to serve as a patient escort.

I had been trained recently by WACDTF in escorting

techniques and non-violent strategy. This training in-

cluded instruction on how to de-escalate potentially vio-

lent situations, a necessity for me especially as I am 24

years old, 5’3”, and 112 lbs.

Hundreds of Operation Rescue members and supporters

gathered across the sidewalk from Planned Parenthood,

and at about 7:00 a.m. began running toward the Wash-

ington Surgi-Center to blockade access. As my role on

site is simply to escort patients into a safe clinic, I did

not run over, but began to walk towards the clinic. When

' reached the intersection of two streets a few blocks

away from the clinic, I stopped because I expected some

patients would walk by me on their way to the clinic and

would need an escort. Both anti-abortion and pro-choice

people were streaming by me. I was wearing an orange

“pro-choice escort” identifying T-shirt.

A man in his late 50’s or early 60’s, about 61” or

6’2”, wearing a clerical collar approached me and stood

very, very close to me. He was carrying some sort of

rolled up cloth which I assumed was a sign and wooden

stakes to drive the sign into the ground. Because I was

familiar with the basic tenet of never challenging a male

whe is physically threatening by looking him in the eye,

I stood my ground, but looked into the crowd running

past me. I kept my palms open so that he would see |

was not looking for physical aggression.

3la

He continued to breathe heavily, as though he were

barely restraining himself from hitting me and to move

very close to me, within 9” of my body. He said, “You

had better get out of here, miss.” I was seared, but I

knew he was trying to scare me into leaving, so I kept

standing there, looking into the crowd. He said again,

“I’m warning you, miss. Leave now.” I did not. He

then took one of the wooden stakes, which seemed, from

my peripheral vision, to be about a foot long made from

rough lumber with a point at the end and a metal sheet

in the middle, out of his bundle and into his free hand.

It was trembling. He brought it up to my left eye, a little

to the left of the center of my eye, and about 2 or 3 inches

away from my face. He began to twist the stake slowly

from side to side, not saying anything, but breathing

heavily. Then he said, “Get out of here!’ and he jabbed

the stake toward my eye on each syllable.

I did not move, looking back on it, probably because I

was too frightened to move. Then a group of escorts

came by me and when he saw the orange T-shirts, he

slipped back into the crowd and I did not follow him. I

was pretty shaken up because this was my first hit. But

it convinced me more that I needed to be out there escort-

ing patients and protecting them from this type of vio-

lence.

The incident also angered me greatly. It was the first

time in my life that I had been physically threatened.

He was taking advantage of the fact that he was a foot

tuller than I, at least 100 Ibs. heavier, and, for all practi-

cal purposes, armed. If I had been a patient, I would have

fled immediately. I know that I did the right thing for

myself and for the patients by standing my ground and

refusing to show my fear. But I also realize that I put

myself at tremendous risk of assault, and that if he had

wanted to hurt me badly, he could have done it easily.

The second incident occurred a few hours later. About

10:00 a.m., Operation Rescue had blockaded the clinic,

32a

80 we could not get any patients in. We established a

“safe house” to bring the patients into until the clinic

was open again. We escorted two groups of patients in

when OR discovered the house. They stood outside wav-

ing pictures of aborted fetuses, ete., and shouting at the

patients in the house. My partner and I slipped into the

front door to find out what our next step should be.

When we looked out the window from inside the house,

we saw that OR had surrounded the house in an attempt

to trap the patients inside. We got a call from our group

at the clinic who said that the police had secured the back

alley and would hold it open for 5 minutes for the pa-

tients to get into the back door of the clinic. I quickly

decided that, in order to protect the identity of the pa-

tients, patients should wear our orange T-shirts, and my

escorting partner and I would pretend to be the patients.

That way, the real patients would escort the escorts out

of the house. We exchanged the shirts, and I took my

hair our of the ponytail holder it was in so OR would

not recognize me.

[ ], my partner, then attempted to open the door

of the house. OR members were jammed against it in

an attempt to keep the patients trapped inside. They

were screaming “murderer”, “please don’t kill me,

Mommy”, “I will take your baby”, and various other

things. I heard one of them say “Don’t let her out! Show

her the dead baby!”. I pretended to cry and grabbed

[ ] hand. We struggled through the crowd, knowing

that the two other escorts were leading the real patients

into the back alley behind us. [ ] and I broke out of

the crowd, and began to run up the street, away from the

alley. About 15 members of the crowd began to chase

after us, yelling “Stop!” and other things I mentioned

before.

We finally turned the corner two blocks up the street

and looked behind us. No one had bothered to follow us

33a

that far. [ ] and I were both shaking and I realized

I was crying for real. It hit us that we were being chased

by an angry mob. Both of us are civil rights history

buffs and at that moment we understood what it felt

like to be a black voter in Mississippi in the 1950’s. There

was just no telling where the mob would draw the line.

They had attempted to blockade us in the house, lain

in wait for us to try to get out, screamed epithets at us,

shoved us backwards into the crowd, away from the

street, and run after us with signs and pictures. Having

been a psychology major in college, I know a bit about

crowd dynamics, and it surprises me to this day that

[ ] and I escaped without being beaten up.

The third incident of violence occurred when [ | and

I were in Dobbs Ferry, New York to escort during a

planned Operation Rescue hit. We had gotten up at about

5:00 a.m. to go to the meeting site of OR and see if we

could get information about their plans. We were in our

car in the parking lot of the OR hotel when we saw

OR’s leaders—B| ) Jl ], KI ) TI ], and

RI ] TI ]—get into a van and begin to drive

away. | ] was in the drivers seat and I was in the

passengers seat of our car. We pulled out ahead of the

van in the parking lot and, in an attempt to delay their

departure, turned off the motor in our car, thus cutting

off OR’s path to the road.

After they leaned on the horn and we did not move,

Bi ] Ji ], an ex-cocaine dealer who now works

as Tl l’s bodyguard, jumped out of the van and

ran up to my window. He flashed some sort of press

identification and said that he was with the press and

needed to get out. I said our car was stalled and that

our friends were calling the tow truck. Then he began

yelling at [ ] to move the car or he’d make sure we

moved. We did not move the car. Then he ran to the

side of the drive and picked up a jagged rock. He came

back and stood at my side of the car and tapped the rock

against the windshield. He kept threatening us, saying

34a

no one else was around. I was too scared to look around

to see if he were telling the truth, but I grabbed my

camera and got pictures of him holding the rock. I rolled

down the window so I could hear what was going on

outside and I heard him say he was going to kill us

if we did not move. I was terrified because not only was

the rock about 8 inches from my face on the windshield,

but one of the WACDTF members had recently been

hospitalized after an OR member attacked her with a

flashlight in an abandoned parking lot. I grabbed a

jacked to shield myself if from the glass if it shattered

when | ] pulled forward. We looked behind us and

saw that the rest of the WACDTF caravan had arrived

in the parking lot to provide witnesses and support. Our

sense of relief was overwhelming and I managed to get

pictures of the van’s license plate.

The police had also arrived, so we followed the van

onto the highway to see where it was headed. Another

of WACDTF’s cars had pulled out ahead of us and we

saw the OR van attempt to run them off the road several

times. We ended up losing sight of the van then.

The rest of the day was pretty antagonistic on both

sides. I had to follow OR around all day, but they made

no more threats. [ ] and I have decided never to drive

with just the two of us in the car when we go on hits.

We also decided to team up with another Task Force car

when go to OR’s sites. It is just too risky to travel in

one pair. I cannot imagine the confusion and terror of

a single patient who is not familiar with OR. They are

an organized terrorist group that resorts to threats and

violence to carry out their agenda. They are NOT non-

violent pacifists or civil resistors.

I do hope these accounts help NARAL. I am giving

you permission to use my full name and to contact me

to speak or to testify on these incidents. Please do not

hesitate to call on me if I can be of help.

35a

LETTER—C22

I am writing in response to NARAL’s request for

information regarding personal experiences with Opera-

tion Rescue activities.

I am the Director of Community Relations at | |

Clinic in | |, Virginia. Our clinic has been a target

of anti-abortion activities since it’s opening in 1973.

In January of 1989 at the annual Roe vs. Wade day pro-

test, D| } Vi } announced the onset of local

Operation Rescue activities in Norfolk. We had an

aborted rescue approximately a month later. On April 29,

1989 a rescue was held rescuers blocked = pee to

r building. Sixty-two arrests were made and all were

sell pases of emai On May 25, 1989 before

the clinie opened for the day I noticed a woman standing

by the door to the clinic. I opened the door to let her

know we would be open shortly, as I did, six men rushed

around the corner, ripped open the door, rushed into the

clinic, knocking me into a wall, a desk, and I finaliy

landed on the floor. The invaders made their wya to the

patient waiting room where they used kryptonite locks

to chain themselves together. It took approximately two

hours for the police to remove them from the clinic.

Prior to this incident when asked by family and friends

if I was afraid of the anti-abortionists I had denied that

I would ever be harmed by any of the participants. How-

ever, after numerous trips to doctors and undergoing

physical therapy for three months for injuries sustained

in their assault, I now realize that they will stop at

nothing to prevent women from exercising their legal

rights.

The participants were found guilty of trespass and one

male was found guilty of assault for which he received

one weekend in jail. I was discouraged by the court’s

lack of appropriate punishment for this type of behavior.

I filed a civil suit and the defendants were found guilty

by a jury. I was awarded $7500 in damages. Several

36a

unsuccessful attempts were made to recover the award

from the defendants. I finally received one small check

from a garnishment of one defendant’s wages at CBN.

Since the invasion in May 1989 we have had numerous

incidents of trespassing on private property and harass-

ment of patients. We had another invasion on September

8, 1990; thirty-five arrests were made for trespass.

One January 26, 1991 approximately twenty-five mem-

bers of Operation Rescue protested at my home carrying

signs saying, among other things, that I support the mur-

der of babies. Early this past March, Operation Rescue

leader, Randall Terry, held a meeting at a local church.

The day after the meeting a protest was held at our clinie

at which Terry announced new tactics for OR including

protesting at clinic employee homes. After the protest

twenty to twenty-five participants moved their activities

to my home and neighborhood. They carried sings and

leafletted my neighborhood and nearby businesses, The

handbills included by name and address, stating that I

am a leading abortion provider at [ ], the local

abortuary. (I am enclosing a copy of the handbill) The

local police were called and a sergeant informed the pro-

testors of a state statute prohibiting picketing in neigh-

borhoods. To compound the confusion, two local television

stations and the local paper showed up to cover the ac-

tivity. The activities totally disrupted my home and my

neighborhood for over an hour. Fortunately, most of my

neighbors were supportive of my situation, even if they

are not supportive of the abortion rights.

When I began working at [ ] as a counselor in

1985 I understood that not everyone would agree with

my choice of employment. I also understood that by ac-

cepting the position of Director of Community Relations

I would be more visible to anti-abortionists and therefore

subject to more harassment. I did not. however, expect

the behavior exhibited by members of Operation Rescue.

a i

37a

is 0 ization are terrorists, they will

4 yee Aya physical assault to achieve their

goals. I have heard their leaders compare their activities

to Martin Luther King and the civil rights activities of

the 1960's. I see no comparison, Reverend King espoused

non-violent protests. Never was physical assault of indi-

viduals condoned. _

Althouch the number of participants in OR activities

seems to be shrinking, the behavior of those remaining is

getting more and more desperate and aggressive. It is

frightening that a minority of individuals are attempting

to impose their beliefs on women who are exercising their

right to choose when or whether to parent and on indi-

viduals providing legal medical services. This imposition

goes far beyond our constitutional right te freedom of

speech. It has extended to physically blocking access to

medical facilities, invading clinics, destroying private

property, harassing patrons of medical buildings and as-

saulting women.

We need strong legal measures to prevent this atro-

cious, illegal behavior. A message must be sent to Opera-

tion Rescue lawbreakers that illegal behavior will not be

tolerated.

LETTER—C26

As a counselor for the past two years at f |

Women’s Health Center, | am happy to share with you

and members of the Supreme Court some of my experi-

ences in dealing with anti-choice protestors out side our

clinic. Since November of 1999, our clinic has been hit

particularly hard with anti-choice protestors who block-

ade the clinic doors on days when abortions are per-

formed. On these days, patients and staff members enter-

ing the clinic are called names, shoved, screamed at,

surrounded and blocked from entering. This includes

women who are coming in for routine gynecological

38a

services. Every day I see the horror, fear and anger on

the faces of our patients, their families, friends and

partners.

I remember one young Hispanic couple in particular

who came in last December. The woman was carrying

a fetus which, through amniocentesis, was determined

to be without kidneys. Their doctor told them that the

fetus probably would not survive delivery, but would

definitely not be able to survive on its own. Because

protestors were sitting in front of our doors, myself

and another staff member pulled the couple over the

protestors and through the doors. You could see the

shock and dispair, especially on the husband’s face, who

by now, was in tears. They told me that they wanted

to have children, but under the circumstances, felt termi-

nating the pregnancy at that point was the best thing.

The people blocking the doors just made a very difficult

experience even more traumatic.

Since November, we have had staff and patients

slammed between the clinic doors or have had fingers,

feet, and arms trapped in the doors as protestors pushed

or leaned against doors. We've had protestors block the

doors with parked cars to which they chained themselves.

We've had our locks glued and doors cemented shut. In

addition, we have 8-15 police officers at the clinic. Our

police force in Milwaukee is already understaffed and

overworked. This is a waste of taxpayer’s money. Our

clinie has been issued harrassment injunctions against

several regular protestors, however, Milwaukee's District

Attorney, Michael McCann, who is anti-choice, often over-

rules Judges’ decision to issue on the injunctions.

The situation in front of our clinic is becoming in-

creasingly volatile. It is just a matter of time until

someone is seriously injured.

I feel strongly that these individuals have a right to

pickett. However, they should be required to do so peace-

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fully. They are not only denying my right to enter my

place of employment freely, but also denying women from

receiving gynecological care and from exercising their

right to a safe and legal abortion.

LETTER—C27

My husband and I often do escort duty at a clinic

where they perform abortions.

I remember one particularly ugly protest. We were

escorting in a tearful woman and her husband who had

been waiting in vain for the protestors to disperse.

The husband told us that his wife was diabetic and

had been advised by her doctor that an a Pron

medically necessary. To carry the pregnancy erm

would likely cost the woman her life, and she had made

the decision to abort, thinking of her husband and their

three children.

You can imagine what a difficult decision that had

been for the woman to make. And now, as we escorted

her to the door of the clinic, the crowd of protestors

screamed the word “murderer” at her. Some kept plead-

ing, “Mother, don’t kill your baby.”

young woman is going to wonder whether the guilt they

tried to heap on le ae justified. Had she been selfish,

choosing her life over her unborn child’s? How many

times that terrible scene will replay itself and she will

wonder if she really is the monster the anti-abortionists

say she is.

LETTER—C29

In response to your request of April 4, | am writing

this letter to relate some of my experiences with anti-

choice demonstrators who are connected with Operation

Rescue. I am a 56 year old woman, an active volunteer

40a

in many human service and cultural organizations in the

Dayton, Ohio community. Recently I received the “volu-

teer of the year” award from District 7 of the Notional

Association of Social Workers. I have also been named

as one of the Top Ten Women in the Dayton Area as well

as receiving numerous other recognitions throughout the

years. Governor Celeste of Ohio appointed me as one of

25 members of the Ohio Commission on Volunteerism. |

tell you these things to establish that I am a credible

person and highly respected member of my community.

In August of 1986, after viewing the activities of the

demonstrators at a clinic in Dayton, Ohio, I contacted the

clinic and volunteered to escort women from the parking

lot into the building in an effort to protect them and

provide support while they endured the unbelievable

harassment of the demonstrators. I remain the ony clinic

escort in the Dayton area. I volunteer two to four morn-

ings a week at the clinic and have done so for almost five

years, so I have had ample opportunity to observe these

people.

My experiences brought me into daily contact with

D| | S! 1, who is currently leader of the Ohio

Rescue movement, D| ] MI |, director of “Proj-

ect Jerico”, Di |] E[ |), director of “Choose Life

Ministries”, and hundreds of their followers. All of

these people have been involved in Operation Rescue and

many have been trained by Randall Terry and or mem-

bers of his group.

From the very beginning of my escort work and

continuing to this day, I have been subjected to many

types of harassment. Verbal assault consists of being

called “murderer, butcher, garbage of society, vulture”

ete. as well as comments about my personal appearance

(hairstyle, clothing) and my lifestyle ‘the size of my

home, the car I drive, etc.). There were numerous verbal

threats made about my daughter, who was 24 years old.

4la

Comments such as “we know where your daughter is, we

know where she lives”. They also learned the identity

of her fiancee and in June, 1988 when she was planning

to be married, the demonstrators threatened to “publicly

embarrass” me by appearing at her wedding, forcing

me io have police officers at the church and at my home

where the reception was held.

Large color photographs of fetuses bearing the in-

cription “Killed by you”, as well as other anti-abtortion

materials, were regularly left in my mailbox. Letters

were written to the Presidents of Arts groups on whose

Boards | served, demanding that I be dropped from

those Boards because I was an “evil woman”. When I

served as Auction chairman of the local public television

station, the station was harassed by phone calls saying

that “you have a murderer as your chairman”. My hus-

band, an attorney, received letters from various anti-

abortion leaders berating him for “allowing me to murder

babies”. I was followed on the highway by some of the

demonstrators, who would tailgate me and ‘or pul! in

front of me, slamming on their brakes, all the while yell-

ing out of their windows “murderer”.

My home has been picketed on Saturday afternoons by

as many as 30-35 people bearing signs saying “| |

leads innocent children to their deaths” or “| |, the

Deathscort”.

The harassment and intimidation at the clinic itself

became so unbearable that the clinic was forced to file

a lawsuit seeking an injunction—the injunction was

granted. I was a witness in that lawsuit as well as sub-

sequent contempt hearings, in addition to testifying in

numerous trespassing charges brought in the local mu-

nicipal court. When I sat in the courtroom after testify-

ing I was verbally assaulted, pushed and shoved.

While carrying out my duties as an escort at the clinic,

I have had a fetus in a coffin pushed in my face—when I

42a

tried to enter the building to get away from the man who

was carrying it, he grabbed my arm and pulled me off the

step. On another occasion, the fetus was wrapped in a

blanket and pushed in my face. This fetus, according to

an interview given by D| |} MI |], leader of the

Jericho Project, to the local newspaper was kept in a

bottle of chloroform in M| \’s home. He boasted in

the newspaper article that he had shown it to me.

On another occasion, I was walking with a patient to

the clinie door, followed by a demonstrator ‘who was

trespassing and violating the Court order). When I

opened the door for the patient, the demonstretor grabbed

both of us, throwing us to the graund, causing the patient

to lose her shoes ‘to say nothing of the trauma she suf-

fered}. I have, along with the patients, been screamed at,

pushed and shoved while escorting the patients through

the parking lot.

There have been three “Operation Rescues” at the

clinic where I volunteer. These have been the worst days

of my life. On one of these days, I was standing outside

the doors of the clinic when three buses pulled up and a

large group of people (mainly men) came pouring out of

the bus, ran to the front door and sat down in front of

me, even sitting on my feet. When the police arrived

they refused to move when requested to do so. I was

eventually instructed by the police to step over them.

At these rescues, clinic staff and myself try to protect

the patients in the parking lot by encircling them. The

demonstrators react by encircling us, pushing us out of

the way to get to the patients, throwing literature at

them and pulling and tugging at all of us. It is an un-

believably frightening experience. These are definitely

NOT peaceful demonstrations.

The windows in the clinic have been shot out three

different times during the night and it is also frightening

to arrive in the morning to find windows shattered by

43a

bullets and bullets lodged n the walls. The doors have

been “super-glued” shut during the night time hours, the

building has been covered with red paint, eggs have been

thrown all over the building and the parking lot.

I do not believe that people have the right to blockade

women’s health clinics anymore than they would be

allowed to barricade a bank’s door because they didn’t

approve of the banking practices. “Operation Rescue”

simply cannot be allowed to continue this type of hor-

rendous harassment and intimidation of women.

I support women’s reprductive rights and the right to

choose. I am fifty six years old. Abortion was not legal

when | was younger and | have personal knowledge of

friends who were so desperate tiat they choose illegal,

dangerous abortions. The mother of one of my friends

died because she tried to abort herself with a feather

and died of infection. | have always been very grateful

that I was never in the position of having to make that

kind of decision.

I could tell many stories of harassment of patients, but

since you asked for stories of personal harassment, I have

not included them. I could also tell many more stories of

various incidents that have happened to me, but I hope

this will be of some help to you.

By the way, I have no problem with my name being

used in any way you choose and you have my permission

to do so if you wish.

I currently speak quite often pub‘icly about my ex-

periences and or pro-choice issues. The local newspapers

and television stations also interview me about pro-choice

matters. Of course, these always bring five a.m. phone

calls with a male voice saying menacingly and deliber-

ately “murderer .. . murderer . . . murderer.” In other

words, from the very beginning of my volunteer work at

the clinic, every effort has been made to intimidate me, to

44a

embarrass me, and to frighten me from continuing my

work at the clinic. The demonstrators and particularly

their leaders, are very unhappy that I am a very credible

witness in court, that I am a respected community leader,

that people listen to me and believe me.

My work at the clinic has brought me to NARAL. I

am currently Vice President of NARAL OHIO and co-

chair of our local NARAL.

Please let me know if there is any way I can be of

help in the future.

> * * *.

LETTER—C33

I’m writing to share my experiences with clinic block-

ades, with and without injunctive relief. I am Executive

Director of seven ambulatory surgery centers that per-

form abortions. Six of these facilities have been block-

aded by a group known nationally as Operation Rescue.

All of the six clinics have been “hit” on more than one

occasion. I was present for all but a few of these

trespasses/blockades. The locations are: Alabama, Mis-

sissippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee,

and the years include 1988 to the present.

In February, 1989 I was contacted by Knoxville, Ten-

nessee City Pclice Department and told that a national

anti-abortion group planned to block access to my facility

on February 4, 1989. The police officers explained to me

that they had made several “deals” with the trespassers

such as: 1. The leader would be allowed to orchestrate

the “sit-in” and would not be arrested; 2. All individuals

wanting to be arrested would be carried on stretchers in

order to keep the clinic closed as long as possible due to

the stretchers requiring more police officers per person;

and 3. The bystanders who called themselves “prayer

support”, would not be arrested.

I questioned these “deals”, and the officer explained

that there was no way to prevent this huge group from

45a

coming onto the property and the main concern of the

police department was to avoid a riot and/or violence if

several hundred people got out of control. That is what

Operation Rescue had threatened if their demands were

not met.

I stayed in the clinic all night before the blockade was

to happen, waiting and worrying. At approximately 6:00

AM I went outside and talked with an officer who was

passing by the area. I was told to meet the group of

trespassers at the property boundary and inform them as

they stepped onto the property that they were trespassing

on private property and that I was asking them to leave

and they would not be arrested if they left at that time.

My vision up to that point was that this was going

to be some kind of symbolic sit-in. At 7:30 AM, approxi-

mately 350 people came marching toward my building in

block formation, about twelve abreast. I met them at the

property boundary with two private security guards and

said what the police had instructed me to say. What a

joke—not a funny one either. The mob pushed me all

the way to the front door of the clinic and proceeded to

pin me and the guards against the brick wall and door.

There were thirteen female employees now trapped in the

’ building. More of the group went and blocked the two

back doors. (Our windows do not open for security

reasons. )

i screamed toward the door to “Call the police!”,

hoping the employees could hear me over the cult-like

chanting and singing of the trespassers. These people

were physically rough and abusive to me and the guards.

They hit us, they bit us, they pushed and shoved us. I

was elbowed so many times I thought I would faint.

Approximately thirty minutes later, the police arrived

and began the arrest process. I asked them to please put

an officer in my place so someone could continue to at-

tempt communication with my staff. The captain felt

46a

that this would further complicate the situation, so I stayed

put. For three and a half hours I was against that

brick wall and door while the Operation Rescue people

held bibles up to hide their friends’ faces on the bottom

of the pile that were pinching, hitting and biting us.

I have enclosed photographs showing: 1. The crowd

at the door, and 2. the bruises on part of my body re-

sultin from the blockade and assault. The experience

was a nightmare. I would never have believed something

like that could happen in broad daylight in America.

Incidentally, the clinic is a licensed, ambulatory surgery

center regulated by the Tennessee D+ partment of Health

and Environment.

! responded to this invasion by acting within the limits

of the law. I sought and obtained injunctive relief in

Federal Court. Within a few days after the temporary

restraining order became a preliminary injunction, Op-

eration Rescue violated the injunction and were found

to be in contempt of Federal Court. After being found

guilty of contempt, none of the defendants have violated

the injunction though they still protest and picket law-

fully on a regular basis. The injunction only stopped

the unlawful and violent activity. It has given me and

others renewed faith in the American legal system as

well as two years of relative peace.

We operate two clinics in North Carolina that have

not obtained injunctive relief and they are continually

attacked and vandalized. In March, 1991 a radical group

known as “Lambs of Christ” pushed their way into one of

the North Carolina clinics and twenty five people locked

themselves together in the surgery area. It took the local

police and fire department ten hours to cut them loose,

and the cost the taxpayers was tremendous. A couple

of weeks later, other members of the “Lambs” poured

gasoline over a car’s interior, parked it to bleck our

clinic doors, and then locked themselves to it. Again,

47a

police officers spent hours trying to unlock the offenders

and arrest them.

In summary, I have had numerous opportunities to

see how radicals act in the face of an injunction, and

how they act when there is no serious consequences for

their illiegal actions. The clinic injunctions work to keep

the peace and still provide for legal protest activity.

Thank you for your time and your interest.

LETTER—C34

In November of 1989 I went out two Saturdays in a

row to help the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task

Force defend clinics against Operation Rescue. It was a

very sobering experience for me. I went with an open

mind, fully convinced that the blocking of women’s health

clinics and the bullying of women should be opposed, but

reserving judgement about the kind of people who would

do these things. I still have an open mind, but the indi-

viduals I encountered the second Saturday at a clinic in

[ ], Md. did not earn my respect, and the experience

made me question why they would call themselves “‘pro-

life.”

I was one of the first people to arrive at the clinic. We

linked arms and formed a line across the rear door. The

clinic is in an office building and the doorway has

several large panes of plate glass. Soon the people from

OR came and lined up in front of us. They began press-

ing against us and somehow one of the clinic defenders

fell or was pushed into one of the panes of plate glass

and it shattered.

Luckily, the man was not hurt, but the partially shat-

tered window with shards of glass hanging down posed

a considerable danger to the people thronged around the

door, especially because there was so much pushing in the

tightly packed crowd and because all of us there on both

48a

sides had such a high level of commitment to our beliefs

that we were not going to just walk away. The danger

was greatest for us because the window was at our backs

and the OR people were leaning against us pushing us

towards the doors. The police sent an officer in to the door

to try to keep people away from the broken window.

I have been in several clinic defenses and there is

always an extended period of standing sandwiched in a

crowd with the OR people pressing against you. That

day at | | was the worst I’ve experienced. I felt

numerous times that the physical pressure would do some

damage to my body. I was also very afraid, as I think

we all were, that if the OR people kept pushing us against

the doors another pane of glass might give. And the most

disturbing and frightening thing about it was that when

confronted with the prospect that we might get hurt,

most of the OR people didn’t seem to care.

We made numerous appeals to them to stop pushing.

The police told them a couple of times to stop. But they

kept the pressure on. At one point, I said, “If you don’t

stop pushing, someone may go through a window.” A

woman responded, “Oh, no one’s going to go through a

window!” I said, “someone did go through a window

this morning!” She replied with a tone as if to say so

what, “Well, I’ve gone through a window.” A frequent

response to our appeals that they stop was, “You’re not in

any danger. You can go home any time.” To me that

was like saying, “We're not threatening you. If we say

‘I’m gonna hit you; that’s a threat. But if we say, ‘Move

or I’m gonna hit you,’ that’s not a threat.”

I believe very strongly in people’s right to free speech

and to protest and OR should be allowed to do that. But

that is not their main business. Their main business is

physically blocking access to a range of health care facili-

ties for women and bullying and intimidation of patients,

clinic staff, and pro-choice supporters.

49a

LETTER—C37

You asked for letters re experiences with anti-choice

protesters.

I escort at Surgi-Center in Atlanta several Saturdays

a month. A woman named M|/ } is there almost

every Saturday morning (and clients have told me she

is there some weekday mornings, too). M| ] writes

down the license tag numbers from all the cars parked

in the clinic parking lot. Some of the clients who come

from small towns are intimated by this. I went to some

trouble to find out M[ ] name, address, and auto-

mobile license tag number. Now when a client or a

client’s friend says, “Why is that woman taking down

my tag number?” I answer, “I don’t know—but here is

her name and address and tag number. If you are both-

ered in any way, you can give it to your attorney.” Of

course, I am only there some Saturdays, and M|{ ]

is there a lot more often.

A woman named N[ ] MI ] came to Surgi a

lot last winter and the first three months of this year.

I haven’t seen her in about three weeks—-I think she is

concentrating on protesting on weekdays now when there

are no escorts present. N[ ] likes to stand at the

waiting room window and sing “Jesus loves the unborn

children.” N[ ] also runs at cars that have pulled up

in front of the clinic or in the parking lot and screams,

“Don’t go in there—you could die. That clinic isn’t safe.”

N[ ] has a lot of urgency and immediacy in her voice

as though she just found out the building was on fire.

One Saturday I was walking a mother and her trembling

teen aged daughter part N[ ] into the clinic, talking

quietly to them. When we got to the door the mother

said, “I wish you had been her yesterday. That woman

(N| ]) made my daughter feel so bad.”

N| ] concentrates on the youngest and most vulner-

able looking clients. She tel!s the young men, “If you love

50a

her, you'll get her out of there. She could die. That

clinic isn’t safe. If she dies, it will be your fault.”

The anti choice protesters often tell clients that the

clinic is about to be closed by the health department.

Once (maybe more but I just know of one time N[ ]

M[ | demanded that a client parking in the clinic

lot produce some identification. The client told us later

she had no idea who N[ ] wa, but assumed she was

someone in authority. When an escort came up to the

car and N[ ] retreated the client was still fumbling

in her wallet and said “Here’s the ID that woman

wanted.”

All the anti choice protesters who come regularly have

a printed list of “symptoms” that they say are experienced

by women who have had abortions. When a protester

chants these “symptoms” the effect is eerie, as though

they are trying to lay on a curse. The “symptoms” in-

clude any discomfort that is likely ever to happen in life,

such as headaches, cramps, bad moods ete. They also in-

clude a lot of discomforts that aren’t likely to happen

such as hallucinations, insanity, ete. I would say there

are about 50 “symptoms” on their list and they follow a

client from parking lot to front door, chanting all the

horrors she will have to endure the rest of her life if she

doesn’t follow their advice.

On four separate occasions I have been physically

threatened by anti-choice people while I was escorting, but

I think three of those occasions were bluff. On December

1, 1990 the man who wasn’t bluffing (in my opinion),

walked back and forth in front of the Atlanta Surgi

Center with a big sign on a heavy wooden handle. He

shoved my repeatedly and said, “Stay away from me or

you could fail and really get hurt” and “You could have

a bad accident.” He shouted at several clients, “So your

going to pay to have your baby ripped out of you, eh?”

We called the police and an Atlanta police officer walked

this man 50 feet away from the clinic, read him the in-

5la

junction, and told him not to come any closer, He stayed

there awhile and since that Saturday I haven’t seen him

again, I am glad to say. A funny footnote is that when

the police came, I said, “That man threatened me.” The

anti-choice protester was dumb enough to say, “I didn’t

threaten her; I just said she could have an accident.

Anybody can have an accident.”

Well, I could go on and on, but this gives you some idea

of how things have been at one particular Atlanta clinic

on Saturday during the last four or five months.

LETTER—C38

Thanks a lot for letting me be a part of this. I have

been escorting patients and “baby-sitting” clinics at least

every other week since June of 1990, so I have had a

chance to see at least some of what goes on.

In July of 1990 (2nd Saturday of the month), I was

escorting patients at the | ] Center in Dallas. An-

other escort and I were assisting patients to get into the

back door of the clinic since the front was completely

blocked by rescuers. Two male rescuers were sitting at

the top of a very short (4 or 5 steps) flight of stairs

between us and the door. They both stood up as we ap-

proached and refused to move when requested to do so.

The other escort was in front of the patient and I was

behind her. The other escort managed to push her way

between the two men and to pull the patient with her as

I pushed from behind so they could get into the clinic

door. This so enraged one of the rescuers that he pushed

me backward down the stairs. I was uninjured, except

for an arm full of splinters from the wooden banisters

and our patient made it in okay. A Dallas police officer

was watching this entire performance. When I went over

to him to complain that the rescuers were on private

property and should not be allowed to push me or any-

body else around, he said, “You can file an assault charge

52a

if you want to, but it won’t do any good.” This officer

was a regular beat policeman and was, apparently, com-

pletely in sympathy with the rescuers. When the Tactical

Unit arrived, all of the protesters were removed from the

clinie property. However, it was necessary to escort pa-

tients from their cars to the clinic with protesters trying

to shove their way between me and the patient so they

could “talk to her” and “give her something to read”.

This kept up from about 7:30 AM till about 2:30 PM.

In October of 1990 (again, a 2nd Saturday), I was

baby-sitting a different clinic, which was then located in

a one-story, multi-tenant building. I was patrolling out-

side of the building when 5 or 10 cars pulled into the

parking lot in a caravan. I went outside, locked the two

outer doors of the building from the inside and notified

the clinic that we were under attack so they could lock

the clinic door into the hall. The rescuers completely

blocked the front door (10 or 15 strong). A clinic worker

had to get out of the building so she could give the tres-

pass warning, as is required by Texas law. We went to

the back door where we were met by another pro-choice

volunteer and an armed security guard for the property.

A group of rescuers blockaded that door as well. When

we opened the door so the clinic worker could get out, they

attempted, by main force, to shove their way through the

door so they could get to the clinic. We managed to

prevent this, but I was bruised up pretty thoroughly and

got my shoulder strained so severely that a doctor’s care

was required. I could not file charges, since several people

were involved and, in that kind of pushing and shoving

match, it is almost impossible to say who did what. We

did have a couple of patients get through this group and

into the building ‘ironically enough, they only wanted

birth-control pills, not abortions), but they had to shove

their way through by main force. Again, Tactical Unit

showed up and arrested 14 of the protesters. A “fake

patient” had gotten into the clinic and, when she came

53a

out, unlocked the front door so that two protesters could

get in and lie in front of the clinic door. They were both

arrested, but filed police brutality charges. One female

police officer was also scratched up and bruised in her

attempts to remove and/or arrest protesters.

The instances of verbal abuse to patients are nearly

endless. One of the hardest things I have to do as a

volunteer is to keep the men who come in with patients

from assaulting the protesters. In one instance, a 17

year-old came in with his girlfriend. The protesters

started with the normal “Don’t let her kill her baby”,

“Be a man-—that’s your baby she‘s going to kill”, “God

made her a mother for a reason” nonsense. The patient

burst into tears and the boy finally turned to the crowd

and screamed, “Let her alone. She was raped!’ One pro-

tester shouted, “How do you know it’s not your baby she’s

killing?” The boy replied, “Because I love her too much

to sleep with her before we’re married.” It took all I

had to keep him from rushing out into the protester group

and just beating up on anybody who was there.

Patients leaving the clinics are also abused, primarily

verbally. Some of them are woozy from anesthesia and

nearly all of them are nervous and upset. The protesters

try to keep them from getting into their cars until they

take the literature advertising post-abortion counselling

and hear that God will forgive them if they repent.

Thank you again for letting me contribute. I am en-

closing my release form and I have no problem with

your using my name. Please feel free to contact me if

I can be of any further assistance.

LETTER—C39

I am wishing to support the National Abortion Rights

Action League’s suit again “Operation Rescue” and pro-

vide eyewitness testimony that the group known as “Oper-

ation Rescue” and others acting in concert with them are

54a

NOT a non-violent organization. I am a co-founder of

the group, the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task

Force (WACDTF), which is a coalition of pro-choice ac-

tivists and organizations committed to defending a wom-

an’s right to choose abortion. I also have coordinated

escorting on a weekly basis at | } Surgi-Clinie at

[ ] Washington, D.C. for approximately six months.

In this capacity I have come in contact with the organiza-

tion “Operation Rescue” and its affiliates.

There have been several incidents that I have witnessed

where members of “Operation Rescue” have acted in

violent and physically abusive manners. There are several

others that I have not personally witnessed but have en-

couraged those who have witnessed them to write in and

describe those circumstances. In addition to the acts of

outright violence that I have witnessed by members of

“Operation Rescue,” there is a constant insidious threat

of violence that is always present during a “rescue” at-

tempt. This tension and harassment often leads to vio-

lence and is much more difficult to document because it

relates to the atmosphere engendered by the actions

rather than the actions themselves. Nonetheless, this as-

pect is just as dangerous as the actual violence that does

occur because it provides the climate for these actions to

happen.

One Saturday in November of 1989 (November 16, I

think! “Operation Rescue” instructed its members to

meet outside of the National Air a1.d Space Museum early

in the morning. This was their designated mobilization

point where they would form a caravan and follow each

other to a predetermined clinic in order to shut it down.

WACDTF learned of the mobilization site and deployed

pro-choice activists to join in the caravan to arrive at the

clinic when “Operation Rescue” did. My partner and I

got to the Air and Space Museum around 6:00 a.m.

Shortly thereafter we were recognized by members of

“Operation Rescue” as pro-choice and ou

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