The cruelty of anti-abortion zealots

Sarah is a volunteer patient escort at a health center in Boston where, among other medical needs, women go to obtain an abortion.   Sarah and other volunteers act as outside escorts, trying to help patients coming to the clinic make if from their cars into the center against the gauntlet of angry or pleading strangers trying to dissuade them, shame them, and intimidate them into changing their minds.

Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, shared a letter she had received from Sarah: 

I've seen a lot in my time as a patient escort here in Boston. Protesters shouting at patients — or getting close and whispering, which is somehow worse. I've seen patients confronted by protesters consider just turning around and getting back in their cars, . . .  I've heard every sneering slogan, seen every graphic sign. 

But these last few weeks have been something else. First, the Supreme Court overturned the buffer zone law that had at least kept protesters 35 feet back from our doors. . . . 

The protesters came the very same afternoon after the Supreme Court ruled. And you could just see it in their eyes, they felt bolder, more confrontational, like now nothing was holding them back. 

And week after week, I am faced with patients who are reduced to tears, just trying to get the care they need. 

I am proud of the work that I do, and I'm so glad that leaders in Massachusetts are working to protect women in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision. But I am endlessly frustrated that these protections, and escorts like me, are needed at all. And I know that things are even worse in places where lawmakers don't care about defending women's access. We've got to do something.

It's not surprising that the five conservative Supreme Court justices voted that buffer zones in front of abortion clinics violated people's first amendment rights to speak to people in the streets.    What surprised me was that the liberal justices joined them in a unanimous 9-0 decision.  Certainly there are precedents for putting some limits on freedom of speech -- like when it interferes with someone else's rights of privacy, or creates a dangerous situation, like crying "Fire !" in a crowded theater.

The case the court considered was a plaintiff described as a gentle person who just wanted to have what Justice Scalia called a "consensual conversation" with women entering the clinic.   The opinion seemed to assume that was all that was involved in the case;  and the blithe suggestion offered was that, if people are feeling harassed, well, just call the police.

But then, one must ask:  If this sidewalk proselytizing  is so unobjectionable, why are these patient escorts needed?  And why are so many of them needed?  "Consensual conversation" is a cruel joke.  It's more like "screaming sidewalk proselytizing" -- and far worse.

As Emily Jane Goodman wrote in The Nation on July 1, 2014:

"They failed to acknowledge that opposition to abortion, in Massachusetts alone, has led to eight murders, 17 attempted murders, 550 incidents of stalking, plus harassment and other violations of individual privacy of pro-choice doctors, patients, staff and advocates."

We're talking about serious crime.  I'd like to hear Ruth Bader Ginsburg explain what she was thinking.   Undoubtedly she considered it a strong first amendment right issue;    but could not anyone think of another remedy to suggest than "just call the police" -- for a chronic problem all around the country that sometimes escalates to murder?

Ralph