Prosecutor: Feds Have Right To Protect Local Abortion Clinics

[funkybutt]

http://www.theneworleanschannel.com/news/3960214/detail.html

NEW ORLEANS -- A prosecutor Tuesday told an appeals court in New Orleans that federal authorities have the right to protect local abortion clinics from violence.

Prosecutors are trying to overturn a lower court ruling in Houston that decided the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act is unconstitutional.

The case stems from a March 2003 incident in which anti-abortion activist Frank Lafayette Bird was accused of ramming a van into a Planned Parenthood clinic near downtown Houston. He was prosecuted under the act.

But U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt ruled Congress had no right to pass such sweeping protections for abortion clinics.

Hoyt said federal authority is limited to interstate commerce and that Boyd's attack on a clinic near where he lived was a local matter.

Public defender Brent Newton told the three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Hoyt's ruling should stand.

The panel took the case under advisement.

[noonwitch]

1. The way Janet Reno applied RICO laws to Operation: Rescue

worked because OR was an interstate operation, engaged in deliberate law-breaking. The prosecution also bankrupted the organization and it's founder. The prosecutor on the case needs to prove that the protestor who rammed his car into the van was working with a multi-state coalition.

[arwalden]

2. Activist Judges!!

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Feds have a constitutional right to protect abortion clinics?!

I think that protection of an abortion clinic is a legal obligation to protect a constitutional right.

[Cats Against Frist]

4. I would agree to let them repeal the law

if, on the off chance I had to go to an abortion clinic, that I could kick the ass of anyone who put a frickin' finger on me, or blocked my path. Hell -- that might even make me pretend like I'm going to have an abortion...

[Maat]

5. Guys, read the Heart of Atlanta Motel Supreme Court case.

If the fact that the hotel had an interstate hwy. in front of it can justify federal jurisdiction, they aren't going to have any trouble upholding this Act. Planned Parenthood is an international, not just national, org.

If this goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, it will be upheld.