Free Republic

A 20-year-old legal fight over protests outside abortion clinics ended Tuesday with the Supreme Court ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used against demonstrators. The 8-0 decision was a setback for abortion clinics that were buoyed when the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals kept their case alive two years ago despite the high court’s 2003 ruling that had cleared the way for lifting a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion leader Joseph Scheidler and others. Anti-abortion groups appealed to the justices after the lower court sought to determine whether the injunction could be supported by findings that protesters...

<p>Supreme Court justices used a 1986 abortion case to debate the limits of political protests yesterday, professing skepticism as to whether protests that shut down a business could be called extortion.</p> <p>At issue was Joseph Scheidler v. National Organization for Women (NOW), in which a jury found two pro-life groups and three individuals guilty of using extortion to shut down abortion clinics.</p>