anti-abortionists adopt a new tactic: tracking license plates
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Anti-abortion-activists-adopt-a-new-tactic-5687420.php
Anti-abortion activists adopt a new tactic: tracking license plates
Advocates say tactic is legitimate; critics contend that it is intimidation
By Brian M. Rosenthal
August 13, 2014 | Updated: August 13, 2014 9:13pm
On nearly every weekday morning between late 2010 and this spring, Eileen Romano stood outside a Beaumont abortion clinic to do what she could to fight a procedure she saw as morally wrong.
Unlike traditional so-called sidewalk advocates, however, Romano did not simply try to talk the arriving women out of having their abortions. She also sought to get the clinic closed with a tactic that is becoming increasingly common in the Texas anti-abortion community: tracking license plates.
Romano wrote down the numbers on the cars that parked outside the facility, checking to ensure the plates showed up twice - for a pre-abortion consultation required by state law and the procedure itself. If a car only came once, she said, it was a sign the doctor had done the abortion without a consultation, and the 63-year-old activist made a note to potentially report to state regulators.
Before the clinic closed in March, Romano estimated that she documented nearly 7,000 license plates. She still has the records.
"We never used the license plate numbers to delve in someone's personal life. Never. That was not the purpose of it," Romano said. "The purpose was tracking and keeping tabs on the numbers and what was going on."On nearly every weekday morning between late 2010 and this spring, Eileen Romano stood outside a Beaumont abortion clinic to do what she could to fight a procedure she saw as morally wrong.
Unlike traditional so-called sidewalk advocates, however, Romano did not simply try to talk the arriving women out of having their abortions. She also sought to get the clinic closed with a tactic that is becoming increasingly common in the Texas anti-abortion community: tracking license plates.
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