Antiabortion Ambush
Antiabortion activist and self-styled
News: Is putting photos of abortion-clinic patients on the Web an invasion of privacy? Or protected free speech?
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Last summer, a patient at the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois, was taken to a nearby hospital after complications from an abortion. Clinic staff tried to duck the half-dozen or so antiabortion activists assembled outside, but as they wheeled the patient to a waiting minivan, protester Daniel Michael called out to his wife, "They botched one!" and then rushed to take the woman's picture. Days later, a clinic staffer was shocked to discover that the woman's medical records and photo had been posted on a Web site called Missionaries to the Unborn.
Posting photos of women entering and exiting clinics is the radical antiabortion movement's latest step in an increasingly sophisticated campaign to use the Internet to target abortion clinics. "For a long time, the focus was on putting up information on doctors and personnel, but now we're seeing patient information, too," said William Lutz, communications director of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. "The fringe and extremist antichoice groups and individuals are always pushing the envelope legally."
Antiabortion activists embraced the tactic last spring after a federal appeals court ruled that Neal Horsley's notorious Nuremberg Files Web site-which lists the names and addresses of abortion providers and shows their names crossed off after they have been killed-is protected by the First Amendment. Encouraged by the finding, last April Horsley started a site called AbortionCams that posts photos of "homicidal mothers" gathered from "photojournalists" who lurk outside clinics, taking photos of patients. Two months after AbortionCams debuted, the Missionaries to the Unborn site featured the Illinois patient's photo and medical records.
The Hope Clinic and its patient have now filed an invasion of privacy suit against the Michaels and the Web site's owner. But although an Illinois circuit court ordered that the site remove the photo and records until the case is decided, photos of dozens of other patients taken outside clinics in 23 states remain posted on AbortionCams.
The Illinois case is the first time these tactics have been challenged in court. Legal experts agree that posting the woman's medical records-copies of which were leaked to the Michaels from an anonymous source-falls within the established definition of invasion of privacy. But the use of the photo will be a much tougher call; in order for a court to rule that revealing personal information is an invasion of privacy, a plaintiff has to show that someone of ordinary sensibilities would be offended by the revelation. "Unfortunately, there is no current privacy law that specifically prohibits all of this," said Anita Allen, a visiting professor of law at Yale Law School who specializes in privacy issues.
Pro-choice groups such as the National Abortion Federation say they are watching the situation closely. Meanwhile, Horsley continues to expand AbortionCams: He has been adding photos from new clinics almost weekly and has announced a plan to create a cable television show using video footage from clinics.
He's also looking for more volunteers to help him. "Get out there to your local butchertorium with your zoom lenses and get those cameras rolling," he writes on his site. "Point and click."
LS.
The most popular method of abortion is the suction method, this is used during the first three months of the baby’s development, and this is where they take a tube connected to a suction device, they put it in the mother’s womb and the powerful suction tears the bay’s body into pieces. Another method is the D and C method this is also used in the first three months of life. In this method they take a knife and scrape the womb to cut the attachment of the baby to the mother, the babies body is then cut into pieces and the head crushed so that it can fit through the opening of the womb. The D and E method is used during 3 and 5 months, a pair of forceps is inserted into the womb where they dismember the baby’s body and taken out through the birth canal, the body is then reassembled to make sure that everything was gotten out. Another way is through salt poisoning, a salt solution is injected into the amniotic sac where it is inhaled and swallowed by the baby, this causes a slow painful death caused by hemorrhaging, shock and burning of the skin. There are two more types of Abortion that are performed in the last three months. The first is when the baby is brought into the world using a cesarean section, the baby is removed form the womb and set aside to die from neglect. The other is when the child is born naturally on time, the only difference is that he is born feet first and when it comes time for the head to come out they make a hole in the base of the head and use a suction device to take the brain out.