Prolife Victories
Loud but Legal in Oklahoma
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 15 — A pro-life Tahlequah, Okla., man has won an injunction forbidding the city of Tulsa from enforcing a noise ordinance that would have silenced his pro-life speech.
U.S. District Judge James Payne said March 12 the disturbing the peace ordinance is “unconstitutionally vague,” the wire service reported.
Gary Bowman filed the suit in May 2002 after he claimed police had stopped him from expressing his opinions near the Reproductive Services of Tulsa.
“Most troubling is the possibility,” Payne wrote in his decision, “as is suggested in this case, that one [who] is offended or disagrees with the speech or ‘noise’ used by a speaker may chill that speech and the attendant viewpoint simply by anointing the conduct as ‘loud, disturbing or unnecessary.’”
Irish Seek to Shutter Clinic
IC NORTHERN IRELAND, March 15 — Pro-lifers in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, are seeking to shut down a local sexual health clinic.
The pro-life advocates have threatened to blockade the Nucleus Youth Center and have started a petition to close it down. Their actions were sparked by news the center gave a surgically inserted contraception device to a 13-year-old girl, the news website reported.
“A school couldn't give a child an aspirin without first going through a mountain of red tape and bureaucracy, yet these health clinics can implant powerful hormones into children without either the knowledge or consent of parents,” said Bernie Smyth of Precious Life, a pro-life group. “This is the height of irresponsibility.”
Chinese Granted Asylum
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 15 — A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of the husband of a Chinese woman forced to have an abortion, stating he cannot be denied asylum because China didn't recognize the couple's marriage.
Congress has decided to grant asylum to up to 1,000 Chinese fleeing their country's forced abortion and sterilization policy. The decision includes the spouses of women forced to undergo such procedures.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Board of Immigration Appeals was wrong in denying asylum to Kui Rong Ma, who came to the United States in 1999 at his wife's urging after she was forced to have an abortion.
Impartiality in the Court?
The House members said they were concerned about the judge's connection to the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Distinguished Lecture Series, which is sponsored by the fund.
