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...

WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service has revoked the tax-exempt status of the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue West for prohibited political activity during the 2004 election. President Troy Newman said the Wichita, Kan., group, now known as Operation Rescue, relinquished its charitable status and reorganized more than a year ago. "We gave it back. We didn't fight any sort of deal," he said. The laws that permit some organizations to organize as tax-exempt entities also bar them from participating in or intervening in elections, including advocating for or against any candidate. The IRS revoked the group's tax-exempt status last week,...

WICHITA, KS (Talon News) -- Pro-life action group Operation Rescue said on Tuesday that a representative from the La Quinta Inns corporate offices conducted an internal investigation into allegations that one of their hotels in Wichita, Kansas was being used by an abortion doctor. As previously reported by Talon News, Operation Rescue had called on its supporters to boycott the national hotel chain La Quinta Inn in protest of one of their locations being used by a nearby abortion clinic to provide medical services to pregnant women who were in town to have an abortion. La Quinta Inn has denied...