LA Times: Federal judge upholds 'bubble ordinance'....

[bliss_eternal]

Federal judge upholds 'bubble ordinance' for abortion protesters

The Oakland ordinance prohibits protesters from coming within 8 feet of patients entering abortion clinics. A Baptist minister had challenged the law after being convicted of violating it last year.

By Robin Abcarian

August 5, 2009

A clash in Oakland between freedom of speech and unfettered access to abortion clinics was resolved Tuesday when a federal judge ruled that a 2008 city ordinance barring abortion protesters from coming within eight feet of women entering and exiting abortion clinics is constitutional.

"I am horribly disappointed," said the Rev. Walter Hoye, a Berkeley-based Baptist minister who challenged the so-called bubble ordinance after he was convicted of violating it last year.

In a federal lawsuit, Hoye said that the Oakland law is unconstitutionally vague and that police applied it unfairly to abortion foes.

But U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer in San Francisco found the law both neutral in its content and appropriately applied by police who arrested Hoye last year in front of Family Planning Specialists Medical Group, an abortion clinic near Jack London Square.

The law applies within 100 feet of clinics.

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http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-me-abortion5-2009aug05,0,6668727.story

[uppityperson]

1. Good. And prosecute all who come within that zone

"I am horribly disappointed" that he couldn't physically accost women? What a total asshole