The March 8 editorial citing the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act) statute as “The wrong tool for abortion access” uses erroneous assumptions to make its case.
The Tribune assumes that previously passed laws that restrict protesters “have done much to minimize interference. . . .” The fact is that although it is debatable whether the number of incidents and demonstrations at abortion clinics are up or down, the incidents of violence and criminal activity have not abated.
The Tribune assumption is that the RICO lawsuits will deter legitimate protests. Unlike the willful and criminal assaults planned, staged or fomented by the Pro Life Action Network, the pro-choice movement has never sought to bar or stifle legitimate peaceful protest!
The Tribune editorial assumption is that the anti-abortion movement is not engaged in organized crime. It may not be the mob in the sense that the Mafia is organized crime, but it is nonetheless another kind of mob. It is organized, and it engages in criminal conduct. And that is the definition of organized crime.
It is significant that Randall Terry, the founder and National Director of Operation Rescue, has now agreed to a settlement of the case in which he promised not to use any form of force or violence to prevent women from obtaining constitutionally protected services.
Reporter Matt O’Connor (Metro, March 13) described how Operation Rescue blockaded the doors of a clinic in Los Angeles and brutalized a woman trying to enter the clinic, not for an abortion but simply for a routine, postsurgical treatment by her physician, who had offices there. This sort of evidence has made very clear that it is acts of force and violence, not peaceful picketing, that this lawsuit is about.
The RICO statute doesn’t apply to peaceful demonstrations, and if that were all the defendants had done, this case would never had been brought, nor would it have proceeded to trial. RICO does apply to the defendants’ nationwide campaign of fear, force and violence against a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. That is why this case was brought.
Now it is up to the court to decide.
Unlike the Chicago Tribune, we in the women’s movement are perfectly in sync with the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided the case could, indeed, move forward under RICO.
