Pro-Lifer Plans to Take 19-Year Dispute With N.O.W. Back to SCOTUS
by Ed Thomas
February 8, 2005
(AgapePress) - According to a defendant in a 19-year-old case involving abortion protestors, a stubborn federal appeals court in Chicago remains the chief obstacle between him and a favorable ruling on his behalf from the Supreme Court of the United States.Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League says the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in February 2003, in a suit filed by the National Organization of Women (N.O.W.) 19 years ago, after his group engaged in protests and counseling of potential patients outside abortion clinics. The high court invalidated the racketeering charges under RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), which N.O.W. lawyers had used against him in the district court and Seventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Chicago.
The Supreme Court ordered the reversal of a nationwide injunction against Scheidler's group that had been issued by the district court. "In an eight-to-one decision [the justices ruled that N.O.W.] could not use RICO, and they sent it back down, saying that the injunction must be dropped and all the damages voiced," he says.
However, the Seventh Circuit Court has since found reason to continue the injunction and, last month, denied a request for a hearing in front of all the court's judges. The head of Pro-Life Action says the appellate court judges took a year to refuse that request, which prompted the decision not to go back to the lower trial court, as directed.
"We decided rather, to take it back to the Supreme Court for clarification," Scheidler says, "because [the Seventh Circuit judges'] arguments were very, very bad. They contradicted themselves." Also, the pro-life leader adds, one of the judges, Daniel Anthony Manion, wrote an especially compelling opinion on the case, offering "an excellent reason why it should be reviewed by the full court."
The Pro-Life Action League spokesman thinks the reason he has been tied up in court all this time is largely because this is an abortion case, with ideology and money from pro-abortion activists supporting their litigation efforts. Although the pro-life activist has already been before the federal high court bench twice already in this matter, he says his attorneys plan to take the case of N.O.W. v. Sheidler back to the U.S. Supreme Court yet again, for a ruling on the issues the Seventh Circuit is holding out on.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
