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

> Briefs, arguments, decisions, and more.

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40385013_0061%3A23

## Record

- **Collection:** Supreme Court brief
- **Document type:** Amicus Curiae Brief
- **Published:** January 1, 1993
- **Citation:** 506 U.S. 263

## Text

a. Ae FiLiLA UY
(y MAY 13 1991

No. 90-085

ea

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

o> ~

v,
2
'

BEST AVAILABLE COPY ™

Zero Population Growth

5%

*
o
a

BEST AVAILABLE COPY See

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SED GE MEUIEEED csccorcecsscsseccsersessssvessessseressees

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

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

13

13

15

28

ii
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-
9

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

2

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.

3

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

4

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).

5

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

6

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).

7

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-

8

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.

10

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),

11

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-

12

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-

13

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.

14

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.

15

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.

16

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.

17

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

18

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,

19

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.

-

20

{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,

21

(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

a

22

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.

23

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-

24

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

25

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.

a

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

27

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.

28

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

la
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

2a

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.

3a

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.

2

4a

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.

5a

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.

6a

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

Ta

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.

8a

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,

9a
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”

were C| | GI | and TI | Of |. I was
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 inciden

[Text truncated at 120,000 characters. The full text is on the page linked above.]

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40385013_0061%3A23. Public record. Not legal advice.