The court overruled the nuisance lawsuit against Planned Parenthood by anti-choicers who think the law should assist them in their harassment campaigns against fellow citizens engaging in legal behavior. I’m sure the libel suit will also get thrown out—Planned Parenthood accused the Pro-Life Action League of running the protests in newspapers, pro-life groups sued saying, “No, they didn’t!”, but the league is actually bragging about it on their website. Seriously, it’s like me suing someone for calling me a feminist.
I covered the harassment on last week’s podcast. The lawsuit that was delaying Planned Parenthood from opening was based on the anti-choice belief that they have a god-given right to mount a racketeering campaign. I’m sure they’re just stunned to find out that yes, even pro-choicers are allowed to protect ourselves.
By the way, new podcast with an interview with Lynn Paltrow of NAPW.
26 Responses to “Next they’ll be saying even women have a right to privacy or something”
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Special use permit my ass. If an oral surgeon doesn’t need one to do business in that zone, Planned Parenthood doesn’t need one.
But root canalz be against God!
Yeah, it’s sooo much better to die from a tooth infection than to get it fixed. After all, if you didn’t want a cavity, you shouldn’t have been eating; you should fast, like God meant you to.
Oh Thank God…given the success of the harrassment initiatives to date…I truly feared PP would lose this one.
These people don’t even pretend not to be thugs. Check out this column by the Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn. (Also check out the unhinged comments, if you have the stomach for it.)
Thanks Bitter Scribe. I had about ten minutes worth of stomach for those comments.
I’m with ahunt. Massively relieved and very happy to be so pleasantly surprised.
Congress needs to expand the RICO act to include anti-choice harassment activities.
I really like the phrase “nuisance lawsuit”. It’s such a perfect term.
Excellent podcast - insightful and incisive. I particularly liked the way you let both the PP harassers and the quiverful folk hoist themselves on their own petards.
On the asking about a kiss thing - a word of advice: Phrase it carefully. I once asked a woman “Would it be wrong for me to kiss you?” She paused for a looooong time, during which I became quite convinced that I had just committed a monstrous faux pas. Turns out that she was parsing my question, since she wanted to say “Yes” as in it’s OK to kiss, but the way I phrased it made “No” the appropriate answer. Long story short, there was much gleeful copulation, but I could have spared myself some stress.
I seem to recall RICO actually being used against anti-choice harassment activities in the past - and such use being called out as being over that imaginary line that separates women from humans.
http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=6546 talks about the loophole in the bankruptcy bill that allows woman-hating anti-life creeps fined under RICO to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying their due.
Lynn Paltrow is awesome! I tried to get her to speak at my college a few years ago, and unfortunately she was unavailable, but it was part of my effort to get us thinking more widely about repro rights
Rock on!
8-0 SCOTUS decision on NOW vs. Schiedler found that they couldn’t sue under RICO, but I think I need to reread the decision before including that information in the next podcast update on this issue.
Not to be overly excited…but I’m wondering if the tide could be turning?
I’ve watched in growing fear for years, as antichoicers succeed in restricting access to reproductive health care for the most vulnerable women among us. Missouri has me shaking in my cowboy boots and I’ve pretty much lost all hope for Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.
We hear so much talk about the “mushy middle” whenever the question of abortion is publically debated. But here is the thing…members of the “mushy middle” who claim to support greater restrictions on reproductive health care also seem to be adamant that they themselves, and their sisters and daughters and friends have full access to reproductive health care.
Plan B is now available. The South Dakota Inititive failed. Anti-choice presidential hopefuls are being questioned about access to contraception…and are ducking hilariously…and these same candidates cannot secure their own rabidly anti-choice base.
So I’m becoming more and more suspicious of media reports that are people becoming less pro-choice. My best guess is that folks may be semi-antichoice in the abstract, but when push comes to shove, they will VOTE to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Sad to think that the concept of choice must become personal before folks wake up and truly examine their beliefs. But I’m wondering if that is not what is happening?
The tide won’t be turned until Scalia, Thomas, and Alito at the very least are gone from the Court and replaced by people to the left of Ginsberg.
Yeah, but I just think the air is changing, for all kinds of reasons. Today we got another victory of sorts from SCOTUS, regarding the NY requirement that organizations receiving public funds must follow state regs and provide contraception coverage in health plans.
From Scott Lemieux at Tapped:
Nominally religious organizations that hire people of different faiths, serve people of different faiths, and perform secular services with taxpayer subsidies and/or tax breaks should comply with generally applicable statutes except in rare cases when they are specifically targeted at religious groups.
And Justice Kennedy has come under so much lucid and withering fire for his bizarre reasoning in Gonzales/Carhart that I can’t help but wonder if SCOTUS is moving with a groundswell of previously apathetic constituents suddenly getting vocal, and recognizing the nightmare of dissention and outright defiance if the court continues its “fundamentalist” drift.
A girl can dream.
And bishops agreed to give Plan B to all rape victims at Catholic hospitals in CT. Because (they say) they *changed their jminds*.
Expansion of RICO??? So that the activist SCOTUS can overturn it again??? We need re-introduce RICO as a constitutional amendment, so that no court can overturn it.
Personally, I enjoy being a “nuisance” with Planned Parenthood Kansas-Missouri, any chance I can get. You know, like protesting on the plaza in Kansas City? Good times, good times.
Oh, and all of those other little “nuisance”-type activities I do as a volunteer for them.
Oh, and those income-scaled exams. Sooo evil.
I eagerly await the Overlawyered conserva-crowd scolding the Aurora protesters for filing frivolous, harassing lawsuits.
*crickets*
Yeah, but I just think the air is changing, for all kinds of reasons.
The anti-choicers definitely think so. All these escalatingly threatening manuevers aren’t happening in a vacuum. I suspect that a lot of anti-choicers see the strong possibility that we’re going to have a Democratic congress and President soon, and when that happens, one law after another protecting choice from their “chip away at the court level” strategy.
I watched the Aurora politicians spinning this morning. They are very very serious while commenting, but making it perfectly clear that the zoning does not prohibit PP and that PP did nothing that comes close to violating any Aurora law.
Nothing they can do about it! It’s legal! Hands are tied! May not like it, but there’s no choice they have to allow choice!
I think they are speaking so sloooowly and seriously b/c they know the forced-pregnancy brigade has guns and bombs and are known to use them.
The terrorists are promising more lawsuits.
on the subject of the libel suit - that almost happened at my school!
my boyfriend was the editor in chief of the college paper. he ran an editorial about how the antiabortion group on campus had planned on bringing the Genocide Awareness Project (i refuse to link to such crap) to campus, but had decided against it. he commended them for making the mature choice, and the president of the club tried to get him fired and threatened to sue for libel. for talking about something that had actually taken place.
fortunately, the president of the college was a former law school dean who knew his libel laws. he politely told her that she was an ignorant twit and that there was no chance she was going to get the editor fired, let alone expelled like her father wanted, and that if the pro-life lawyer group she contacted had any legal sense at all, they’d laugh in her face when she asked them to sue.
Caren…is there print media you can link to?
Kneejerk…it occurs to me that Aurora politicians are having it two ways safely…solemnly and implicitly expressing regret that the PP health care facility is opening, while dodging the bullet on the public cost of losing a court fight.
Chikenshits!
Years ago, my semi-next door neighbor, wildly intelligent and politically apathetic remedial math tutor, Barb, predicted that there would be a pro-choice groundswell backlash from people like her and her significant other…professional people who just want to be left alone to smoke a coupla joints every now and then, and just live.
These later days, Barb and SO are participating. And I am coming to believe they are an unrecognized force to be reckoned with.
“…
Ald. Rick Lawrence, an outspoken critic of the clinic, said he believes the full City Council should have been given a chance to vote on the clinic…”
I guess that certain members of the Aurora city council expect that their religious mania trumps the laws of the state and city.
Why am I not surprised?
I’m sure the libel suit will also get thrown out—Planned Parenthood accused the Pro-Life Action League of running the protests in newspapers, pro-life groups sued saying, “No, they didn’t!”, but the league is actually bragging about it on their website. Seriously, it’s like me suing someone for calling me a feminist.
That’s not what PLAL sued over. They sued because Planned Parenthood lied about their activities and lost twice before the Supreme Court. Basically, PP misrepresented the court cases by leaving out the important part: the Supreme Court determined there were no violations of RICO laws.
sharon, where did PP lie to the Court? Actually misrepresenting the law to a Court is a serious ethical breach. If you are accusing Planned Parenthood’s lawyers of being unethical and violating their oaths as officers of the court, I’d be interested in seeings something to back up those assertions.
RICO is something that the courts have, of late, been reluctant to expand past its original intent of taking down criminal enterprises like the Mafia.