Texas Anti-Abortion Activists Reveal They Track Patients, Doctors

[Capt. Obvious]

Anti-abortion activists consider tracking license plates and searching tax records to be effective tactics for combating abortion providers in Texas, according to newly released undercover audio.

NARAL Pro-Choice Texas and Progress Texas on Tuesday posted the audio, which was captured at an Aug. 4 "Keeping Abortion Facilities Closed" training hosted by anti-abortion groups at the state Capitol. That training took place the same day that abortion providers kicked off a court challenge to the state's omnibus abortion law, which would reduce the number of providers available to Texans by requiring all facilities to meet ambulatory surgical center standards.

"The license plates that are coming into any abortion facility, we have a very kind of sophisticated little spreadsheet, everybody keeps track. This way you can track whether or not a client comes back, if they turned away," Karen Garnett, executive director of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas, said on the recording. She described that tactic as "totally legal."

"You have license plates, car make, model, description of the person," she added. "Then as far as the staff members and the abortionists, you can identify if you got a new abortionist."

....

"These abortionists are feeling the pressure from the pro-life movement in Texas. I think they feel like they’re on the run," she said on the recording. "And that’s how we want to keep it, we want to keep pressure high on them and let them know they can move wherever they want … We're still gonna be there outside their clinics, we're still gonna be praying, we're still gonna be sidewalk counseling, and we're still gonna be exposing what's going on inside these buildings."

More including the Audio clip

[kelliekat44]

1. isn't this unconstitutional? nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. No. The Constitution controls only what the government does.

If a private organization is writing down license plates and other public information, it's legal. But now that what they are doing is known, the same could be done to them.

[Kelvin Mace]

3. Nope.

Creepy, vile and disgusting, but perfectly legal.

[louis-t]

4. Yes, so they can kill for Jesus.

Some of these people really think they have that right.

[MisterP]

7. a lot of the doctor-killer are in fact tied to "Christian Identity" movement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Citizen_Movement

there's also this nontheistic one, invented by the can-opener inventor

[GusBob]

5. how can this be legal?

Is this not a HIPPAA violation? they are disseminating personal and medical information AND using it for financial gain (fundraising)

Is this not interfering between a Dr and Patient relationship? (Notice how they use the word "clients&quot For instance if a patient was getting a transplant via an embryonic stem cell, a perfectly legal therapy, and they disrupted the treatment, would they not be arrested?

[IggleDoer]

6. Since the Supreme Court recently ruled that protestors are "consellors."

Then they may be function in the capacity of medical professionals. HIPPAA might apply.