Pro-Lifers Considering First Amendment Lawsuit Against City of Albany, NY
by Allie Martin
August 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - Authorities in New York are being accused of trying to trample on the First Amendment rights of pro-life activists. Each summer, pro-life activists take part in "Oh Saratoga!," a march and rally that winds up in Saratoga, New York, the site of a decisive battle in the American Revolution. Marchers recently contacted the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy (CLP) after officials in Albany refused to allow the pro-life activists to use any amplification equipment during a planned rally.
Stephen Crampton, chief counsel for the CLP, says the city eventually rescinded that decision and allowed activists to use amplifiers, but prohibited pro-life demonstrators from using a public sidewalk in front of an abortion clinic.
Speaking of Albany officials, the attorney says "they were well aware of the limits of their authority -- and yet chose to disregard those limits in an effort to appease the politically influential owners of the Planned Parenthood clinic."
That appeasement, he says, was displayed in what the attorney describes as a "great irony."
"They allowed 25 escorts from the Planned Parenthood clinic to occupy that sidewalk [in front of the clinic]," he says, "and not a single one of our pro-life people who were urgently seeking to communicate with women going into that clinic."
Those activists, Crampton adds, had "only a matter of seconds" in which to communicate "a message of life and hope that might result in the saving of the lives of some of those babies in the womb." The attorney explains that a federal lawsuit is still possible against the city of Albany.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
