NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/talk/abortion/58412

Text File | 1993-01-28 | 1.7 KB | 41 lines

Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Path: sparky!uunet!wri!joplin.wri.com!markp
From: [e-mail] (Mark Pundurs)
Subject: Ku Klux Klan Act
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Keywords: KKK, Ku Klux Klan Act, Supreme Court
Sender: [e-mail]
Nntp-Posting-Host: joplin.wri.com
Organization: Wolfram Research, Inc.
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 20:14:34 GMT
Lines: 28

Letter to the editor, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 25

Criticism (and most media coverage) of the Supreme Court's decision
in the Operation Rescue case has missed the important point: Under
the court's decision, abortion clinics are entitled to exactly the
same legal protections against trespass and violent protest as are
other controversial institutions in our society.

When animal rights protesters blockade or destroy the property of
animal laboratories, homosexual activists disturb Roamn Catholic
religious services, anti-apartheid protesters trespass on the property
of the South African embassy, the owners of those institutions are
protected by state laws against trespass and other property crimes.
They are not entitled to federal court injunctions under the Ku Klux
Klan Act, which was enacted for entirely different purposes.

Abortion clinics are entitled to the same protection of the law --
no less and no more. Indeed, it would violate important principles
of the 1st Amendment if the government were to punish political
protest against abortion more harshly than it punishes similar forms
of protest directed at different causes.

The Supreme Court has not condoned violence or lawlessness. It has
simply ruled that the same law applies to all.

Michael W. McConnell
William B. Graham Professor of Law
University of Chicago Law School