Abortion

In a speech before the National Press Club Tuesday, Iowa Governor and potential Democratic presidential candidate Tom Vilsack sid he would favor tighter restrictions on abortion similar to those recently passed in South Dakota.

The Des Moines Register has more:

“I like to suggest life is the best choice — probably not the only choice but the best choice,” Vilsack, a possible candidate for president in town for the National Governors Association winter meeting, said in response to a question at the event.

He said that in Iowa, he has worked to expand opportunities for adoption and improve pre-natal care and access to preschool, and the number of abortions is on the decline.

Nonetheless, “I obviously do not agree with the approach South Dakota” has taken, Vilsack said.

The U.S. Supreme Court this in Schiedler vs. National Organization for Women, et al, week ruled that abortion clinics cannot use federal laws against racketerring and extortion to stop demonstrations.
The New York Times has more:

The opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer turned on two words. The justices ruled that clinics could not use the decades-old Hobbs Act, which outlaws the obstruction of commerce by “robbery or extortion,” to stymie protesters.

“Physical violence unrelated to robbery or extortion falls outside the Hobbs Act’s scope,” Justice Breyer wrote. To try to use the act as the National Organization for Women and other abortion-rights advocates have done “broadens the Hobbs Act’s scope well beyond what case law has assumed,” he wrote.

Moreover, the ruling noted, Congress specifically addressed the needs of abortion clinics and their patients in 1994, when it passed legislation that makes it a federal crime to attack or blockade abortion clinics, their operators or their patrons. By its actions in 1994, Congress suggested that the much older Hobbs act did not address anti-abortion protests, Justice Breyer wrote.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. did not take part in today’s ruling. He took his seat on the court after the case, Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, No. 04-1244, was argued last Nov. 30.

The ruling today marked the third time the justices have addressed the long-running dispute over how federal law applies to blockades of abortion clinics. The Hobbs Act, enacted in 1946 to supersede a 1934 anti-racketeering statute, specifically outlaws the obstruction of commerce “by robbery or extortion.”

Two violations of the Hobbs Act, in turn, can demonstrate a “pattern of racketeering activity” that entitles victims to triple damages under the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO.

In the 1980’s, the National Organization for Women and two abortion clinics sued Operation Rescue and the Pro-Life Action League under the Hobbs Act. In 1994, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that abortion clinics could use that statute, but that they had to prove in court that the actions of protesters were part of a “pattern of racketeering activity.”

But later, after the anti-abortion groups won in the lower federal courts, the Supreme Court reversed its own ruling, holding in 2003 that the protesters’ behavior around clinics did not amount to extortion, or trying to obtain another’s property through real or threatened “force, violence or fear.”

The justices found in the 2003 ruling that the 117 specific acts described in the lawsuit did not meet that definition, and they sent the case back to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. But instead of dismissing the suit, the Seventh Circuit kept it alive on the basis of four additional actions of protest that the Supreme Court had not reviewed, and it ordered the Federal District Court in Chicago to determine whether those four actions might fall under the Hobbs Act.

In their latest appeal to the Supreme Court, Joseph Scheidler, the national director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, and his allies argued that the Seventh Circuit had misread the 2003 Supreme Court ruling and ought to have dismissed the entire lawsuit.

“I am mystified that I had to go to the trouble and expense of appearing before the Supreme Court three times,” Mr. Scheidler said today, in a statement issued in Chicago. He said NOW had refused to acknowledge defeat and had persuaded the Seventh Circuit to keep the case alive “in spite of the Supreme Court’s clear mandate to end it” in 2003.

Mr. Scheidler’s lawyer, Thomas Brejcha, called today’s ruling “not just a victory for pro-life activists, but for anyone who chooses to exercise his First Amendment rights to effect social change.”

demonstrations against abortions.

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Opinion: Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc., et al.Arguments: Scheidler, Joseph, et al. v. National Organization for Women, Inc., et al. (PDF)Scheidler v. National Organization for Women (2003 Arguments and Opinion)

The opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer turned on two words. The justices ruled that clinics could not use the decades-old Hobbs Act, which outlaws the obstruction of commerce by “robbery or extortion,” to stymie protesters.

“Physical violence unrelated to

The Wisconsin-based Women’s Medical Fund is calling for a boycott of South Dakota tourism if Governor Mike Rounds signs a bill banning most abortions.

KELO-TV has more:

It’s the state’s second largest industry, but South Dakota tourism could see a drop in visitors who don’t support a ban on abortion.

Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Women’s Medical Fund says, “Women across the country and those who believe in women’s rights need to act immediately to let South Dakotans know that we will bypass South Dakota, that we can do without Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills and the Badlands and the Corn Palace.”

Last year tourism brought in two billion dollars worth of economic impact.

Teri Ellis Schmidt with the SF Convention and Visitors Bureau says, “Tourism is critical to Sioux Falls and all of South Dakota. It’s the bread and butter of a lot of people’s livelihoods.”

And while out-of-state visitors may not think of places like the falls, they often stop here on their way out west. So this part of the state could also take a hit.

Schmidt says, “We know Sioux Falls is also a destination spot for tourists and convention goers and they may stay longer and go to the Black Hills so what’s good for one of us is good for all and what’s bad for one is bad for all of us.”

And since some potential visitors believe the abortion bill is bad for America, they plan to take their anger out on the state where they believe it will hurt the most.

Gaylor says, “They depend on tourism and the goodwill of other Americans./30:28 “when Idaho was poised to pass a similar ban there was a boycott called of Idaho potatoes and we got the governor to back down.”

But Governor Mike Rounds has also heavily promoted increasing tourism as part of his 20-10 initiative, which increases the political pressure as he decides whether to sign the controversial bill into law.

Schmidt says, “I wouldn’t want to be in the governor’s shoes for anything right now!”

The state tourism office has received between 60 and 75 emails on the issue, both positive and negative.

Attorney General Mike Cox filed a brief Monday backing his appeal of a ruling that declared a Michigan abortion law unconstitutional.

MILive has more:

“I am asking the federal appellate court to uphold the will of the people,” the Republican said of the law approved by the Legislature in 2004.

In September, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Page Hood in Detroit ruled the Legal Birth Definition Act placed an “undue burden” on women’s right to choose. Hood said the law was confusing and vague and its exceptions for the health or life of a mother were meaningless and unconstitutional.

Proponents of the law said they were attempting to ban a procedure they call “partial-birth” abortion, but critics said it banned all abortions. Previous attempts by state lawmakers to stop the abortion procedure were struck down by federal courts in 1997 and 2001.

In his brief before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Cox points to a January ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said that lower courts in addressing flaws in abortion laws do not have to strike down an entire law. Instead, the justices said that other “modest” options are available.

Cox argues the Michigan law only bans the abortion procedure doctors label “intact dilation and extraction,” or D&X, and not other procedures that are constitutionally protected. The law can be construed to adequately protect a woman’s life and health, Cox says.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who sued to block the law, have argued it is too broad.

The case is Northland Family Planning v. Cox.