Abortion Clinics

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court yesterday intervened again in a long- running dispute over protests outside abortion clinics. Justices said they will consider whether an antiabortion group's campaign against abortions, conducted outside clinics 20 years ago, may have violated federal racketeering and extortion laws. The court has dealt with the same case several times before. Most recently, justices ruled in 2003 that the laws were wrongly used against antiabortion activist Joseph Scheidler and others.

A federal judge has rejected a challenge to the state's abortion clinic buffer zone law as it has been applied at clinics in Boston, Worcester, and Springfield. US District Judge Joseph L. Tauro rejected claims that the law violated abortion protesters' free speech rights, saying in a ruling issued yesterday that the law "as applied is a valid regulation of the time, place, and manner of Plaintiffs' speech. " Attorney General Martha Coakley, whose office defended the law, said, "We are pleased that the court has upheld the Commonwealth's buffer...

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia took a big step yesterday toward eliminating most of the state’s 21 abortion clinics, approving a bill making rules so strict the medical centers would likely be forced to close, Democrats and abortion-rights supporters said. Governor Bob McDonnell, a Republican, supports the measure, and when he signs it into law, Virginia will be the first state to require clinics that provide first-trimester abortions to meet the same standards as hospitals. The requirements could include structural changes such as widening hallways, increased training, and mandatory...

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Authorities arrested an Alabama man yesterday on federal charges of setting a New Year's fire that gutted a Florida Panhandle abortion clinic long targeted by violence and protests. Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, was charged with violating federal explosives laws and was being held at the Escambia County Jail pending indictment, the state fire marshal's office said. The two-story clinic that was gutted by flames early Sunday has been attacked before.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Some state employees have been fired and two Pennsylvania agencies have overhauled their regulations following allegations that a Philadelphia doctor performed illegal abortions that killed a patient and viable fetuses, Governor Tom Corbett announced yesterday. “It happened because people weren’t doing their jobs, plain and simple,’’ Corbett said. Corbett said four attorneys and two supervisors at the departments of Health and State were either fired or resigned on Friday and that eight other employees involved in the internal investigation remain on the...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A man who was accused of plotting to firebomb abortion clinics, churches, and gay bars was sentenced yesterday to five years in federal prison. Stephen John Jordi, 36, pleaded guilty in February to a single charge of attempted arson of an abortion clinic. Prosecutors had asked Judge James Cohn to sentence Jordi under a federal terrorism law and sought seven to 10 years. Cohn refused, saying federal sentencing rules require that plots have an international component to be considered terrorism.

OMAHA - Inspired by a contentious Nebraska law, abortion opponents in five other states have won passage of measures banning virtually all abortions after five months of pregnancy. The late-term bans - based on the premise that fetuses at that stage can feel pain, a view that has been disputed - are among a record wave of more than 80 restrictions aimed at reducing access to abortion, all of them approved this year in state legislatures. Other measures expand pre-abortion counseling requirements, ban abortion coverage in new insurance exchanges, and subject abortion clinics...

WASHINGTON -- A 20-year-old legal fight over protests outside abortion clinics ended yesterday with the Supreme Court ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used against demonstrators. The 8-to-0 decision was a setback for abortion clinics that were buoyed when the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit kept their case in play two years ago despite the high court's 2003 ruling that had cleared the way for lifting a nationwide injunction on antiabortion leader Joseph Scheidler and others.

IN HIS June 27 letter “To win his vote, GOP must get politics out of personal rights,’’ Gerald Evans writes, “Why does the abortion debate have to be a political or judicial issue? What happened to an individual’s right to privacy?’’ Abortion is a debate over human rights, namely the right to life, and like all human-rights debates before it, such as slavery and civil rights, it is playing out in the political and judicial realms. Nearly 60 million human lives have been terminated in abortion clinics in the United States since...

WICHITA, Kan. -- Abortion foes are invoking a seldom-used Kansas law to try to force a grand jury to investigate the case of a mentally retarded woman who died after receiving a late-term abortion. The case represents the latest skirmish over abortion in Kansas, which has become a major battleground, in part because of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few physicians in the country to perform abortions late in pregnancy. Tomorrow, abortion opponents plan to present Sedgwick County with a petition signed by nearly 7,000 residents asking a grand jury to look at the circumstances surrounding the...

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Federal investigators plan to join the investigation of a suspicious fire at a Florida Panhandle abortion clinic that has been the site of deadly violence in the past, officials said yesterday. The fire early Sunday at American Family Planning in Pensacola largely destroyed the two-story building, said Lieutenant Kevin Fiedore of the state fire marshal's office. No one was injured. The fire began in dry vegetation outside of the building, which is surrounded by oak trees.

The State Fire Marshal's office is investigating a fire that gutted a Florida Panhandle clinic that has been the target of abortion protests. Pensacola Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Peake tells the Pensacola News Journal ( http://on.pnj.com/v4Ykmh) that the two-story building housing the American Family Planning clinic was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived just after 1 a.m. Sunday. No one was injured. Peake said the investigation was turned over to the state.

PHILADELPHIA - Two abortion clinic workers pleaded guilty yesterday to third-degree murder in deaths at a Philadelphia clinic where seven babies were allegedly killed with scissors and a patient died from an overdose of painkillers. Andrea Moton, 34, admitted her involvement in the death of one baby. Sherry West, 52, pleaded guilty in the February 2009 death of Karnamaya Mongar. Neither worker was properly trained for the work they did at the clinic run by Dr. Kermit Gosnell, authorities said.

WICHITA, Kan. - Kansas officials are easing contentious new regulations governing abortion clinics, but the move may not be enough to placate abortion providers who have persuaded a federal judge to block earlier versions, the Associated Press has learned. In an advance copy of the permanent rules that will take effect Nov. 14, a comparison with the temporary version of the rules shows Kansas Department of Health and Environment officials have removed some provisions criticized during a public comment period and in a federal lawsuit.

OMAHA - Inspired by a contentious Nebraska law, abortion opponents in five other states have won passage of measures banning virtually all abortions after five months of pregnancy. The late-term bans - based on the premise that fetuses at that stage can feel pain, a view that has been disputed - are among a record wave of more than 80 restrictions aimed at reducing access to abortion, all of them approved this year in state legislatures. Other measures expand pre-abortion counseling requirements, ban abortion coverage in new insurance exchanges, and subject abortion clinics...

IN HIS June 27 letter “To win his vote, GOP must get politics out of personal rights,’’ Gerald Evans writes, “Why does the abortion debate have to be a political or judicial issue? What happened to an individual’s right to privacy?’’ Abortion is a debate over human rights, namely the right to life, and like all human-rights debates before it, such as slavery and civil rights, it is playing out in the political and judicial realms. Nearly 60 million human lives have been terminated in abortion clinics in...

WASHINGTON -- Health officials said yesterday that they have ruled out the abortion pill RU-486 as the cause of one of two deaths in women who had taken the drug. The second remains under investigation. The one death was unrelated to either abortion or use of the pill, the Food and Drug Administration said. The second woman showed symptoms of infection. Four other women have died of a rare but deadly infection after undergoing pill-triggered abortions. In those four deaths, all involving Californians, the women tested positive for Clostridium sordellii, a common but...

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. — Former Nassau County district attorney Denis Dillon — who in more than three decades on the job prosecuted Amy Fisher who became known as the Long Island Lolita, and the gunman in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre — has died. Mr. Dillon died Sunday from lymphoma at his home in Rockville Centre, just east of New York City, said his longtime spokesman, Ed Grilli. He was 76. Grilli said Mr. Dillon worked as a top-notch prosecutor, not as a politician, resulting in one of the highest felony conviction rates...

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia took a big step yesterday toward eliminating most of the state’s 21 abortion clinics, approving a bill making rules so strict the medical centers would likely be forced to close, Democrats and abortion-rights supporters said. Governor Bob McDonnell, a Republican, supports the measure, and when he signs it into law, Virginia will be the first state to require clinics that provide first-trimester abortions to meet the same standards as hospitals. The requirements could include structural changes such as widening hallways, increased training, and mandatory...

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Some state employees have been fired and two Pennsylvania agencies have overhauled their regulations following allegations that a Philadelphia doctor performed illegal abortions that killed a patient and viable fetuses, Governor Tom Corbett announced yesterday. “It happened because people weren’t doing their jobs, plain and simple,’’ Corbett said. Corbett said four attorneys and two supervisors at the departments of Health and State were either fired or resigned on Friday and that eight other employees involved in the internal investigation...