Rico Ruling: Open Season on Pro-lifers?

Pro-life activists say the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling against them on January 24 eventually could shut down the entire movement.

The Court, in NOW v. Scheidler, opened the door for abortion-rights organizations to sue pro-lifers under the 1970 Racketeering-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Until now, Rico has been used to fight organized crime, but the justices ruled that the federal law may be applied to ideological motivations, not just economic ones. The case involves defendant Joseph Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago, entering a Delaware abortion facility and warning clients they were in danger of going to hell. Such a disruption, Scheidler argued originally, did not benefit him financially.

Two lower courts ruled in favor of Scheidler. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court eight years after it started, the National Organization for Women (NOW) had been joined by other abortion-rights groups, incorporating suits against Operation Rescue and its founder, Randall Terry. Pro-lifers were represented by such groups as Americans United for Life (AUL), the American Center for Law and Justice, and the Rutherford Institute.

The ruling allows NOW to sue Scheidler and others in an effort to prove they were engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity as part of a national conspiracy to close abortion facilities through violence and intimidation. Abortion-rights groups have tried to link peaceful demonstrators from groups such as Operation Rescue with arson bombings and acid attacks. If successful in proving property crimes, defendants would be liable for triple damages (CT, Nov. 8, 1993, p. 42).

“We haven’t lost,” says the 66-year-old Scheidler, who has racked up $1 million in legal fees on the case. “They have to prove extortion. I’m determined to keep fighting until I die.”

Still, pro-life leaders are wary of the consequences of the ruling, made only six weeks after opening arguments.

“We’ve lost one of our defenses,” says Paige Comstock Cunningham, president of AUL in Chicago. “This will have a chilling effect on legitimate free speech. They [abortion-rights groups] are really out to bankrupt the entire pro-life movement.” Planned Parenthood has filed a RICO suit against Arlette Randash for praying in front of an abortion facility in Missoula, Montana. Randash, who never had been involved in a protest before, already has accumulated $10,000 in legal fees.

Not only pro-life activists found the 9-to-0 ruling troubling because of the potential free-speech limitations. Such strange bedfellows as the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Gay and Lesbian Task Force filed amicus curiae briefs siding with the pro-lifers.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case in April deciding the legality of “bubble zones” around abortion facilities. The Florida Supreme Court upheld a judge’s order that pro-lifers must remain 36 feet away from Aware Woman Center for Choice property in Melbourne, including public sidewalks.

By John W. Kennedy.

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