Pro-lifer’s FACE violation questioned
Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow – 12/26/2011 3:35:00 AM
A Denver pro-lifer has gained the support of a legal group that believes he’s being targeted by the U.S. attorney general simply because of where he stands on the issue.
Kenneth Scott is being prosecuted based on the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which is designed to keep pro-lifers from blocking access to abortion clinics. But Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society tells OneNewsNow Scott is accused of obstruction, which appears to be an obscure interpretation of federal law.
“It appears to be based on the fact that when he waves someone to come over and talk to him and to pull over to take literature about offering alternatives to abortion, that the car that is stopped [so people can talk] to Ken might have obstructed some other car that would be waiting to get into the parking lot to have an abortion,” he explains.
But he points out that when the lead car leaves, the people in the vehicles supposedly behind it still have full access. So he suggests that if someone were selling flowers on a right of way, for example, not one eyebrow would be raised.
“These are rights that we have had and [that] have been held sacred in this country from time immemorial — and yet today, the attorney general wants to restrict those rights merely because this sort of interchange of information and ideas is occurring outside of an abortion clinic,” the attorney laments.
The U.S. attorney general’s office has assigned five federal prosecutors to handle the case against Scott, while the Thomas More Society enters the fray with the pro-lifer’s legal team.
