Judge orders protesters who block abortion clinics to abide by New York buffer zone

By Kurt Jensen

(OSV News) -- Red Rose Rescue, the small Michigan-based group that has conducted blockades of abortion clinics in Michigan, New York and Virginia since 2017, was ordered Dec. 8 to abide by a new restriction on clinic access covering 13 counties in New York.

Judge Kenneth M. Karas of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a preliminary injunction sought by New York Attorney General Letitia James that creates a 15-foot buffer zone for clinic protesters. James had asked for a 30-foot buffer, but the judge reduced the distance while adding more downstate counties.

On June 8, James announced she was suing Red Rose Rescue, accusing the activists of "terrorizing" patients and staff at abortion clinics. The suit is ongoing.

The injunction applies to the individual defendants in the lawsuit and clinics in New York, Bronx, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, Sullivan, Kings, Nassau, Queens, Richmond and Suffolk counties.

Karas also found the attorney general's office had shown both "irreparable harm" from Red Rose Rescue and a likelihood of success on the merits of the lawsuit.

James' statement noted that Red Rose Rescue "has delayed and interfered with the provision of reproductive health care services at three clinics in New York" in the past two years.

Members including Father Fidelis Moscinski, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal based in the Bronx, have served jail terms; Father Fidelis is currently finishing a term in a federal prison in Louisiana.

Red Rose Rescue is countersuing. In a complaint filed July 7 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, Monica Miller, who leads the group, and Suzanne Abdalla -- both are Catholic -- said James' actions "weaponize her office and authority" and "defame, falsely label, and target peaceful pro-life demonstrators as 'terrorists.'"

That lawsuit was filed by the American Freedom Law Center based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In a statement following the injunction, Miller said James "brought a lawsuit against activity that simply doesn't exist. First of all, Red Rose Rescue is not an extremist group, no more extremist than those fighting for civil rights in the 1960s."

"Red Rose Rescuers do not 'invade' abortion centers," the statement continued. "They simply, quietly walk in as any other person might walk into an open doctor's office."

"They are there to show love and give hope to these women, giving them a final chance to choose life," Miller said. "They never act in violence, they never yell, they never argue."

James' lawsuit describes a blockade in April 2021 in Manhasset, New York, differently.

It stated that a member of the group "misrepresented herself as a patient" and then after checking in, "went to a side entrance of the building to let in the rest of the (Red Rose Rescue) Defendants." The suit describes the defendants then occupying the waiting room, "rendering it unusable by patients"; they refused police requests to leave, falling limp on the ground, with one woman "screaming, 'I am not leaving.'"

James' lawsuit also noted that when Father Fidelis entered wearing street clothes, he was carrying "a black duffle bag," which staff and patients feared held weapons. The friar instead pulled out his religious robe and changed into it.

After two hours of disruption, police forcibly removed the group.

In a July 2022 blockade activists call a "lock and block" at a clinic in Hempstead, New York, James' lawsuit states: "Moscinski placed six industrial locks and chains on the front gates of a Planned Parenthood clinic" which blocked the parking lot driveway and pedestrian access gates. Ultimately, the fire department had to use a battery-operated saw to cut the locks after manual tools failed.

Obstructing or interfering with access to clinics "providing reproductive health services" is illegal under both the U.S. Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, enacted in 1994, and the New York State Clinic Access Act. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 14 other states and the District of Columbia have similar laws governing access.

In a 2023 year-end fundraising appeal, Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, a separate organization Miller also heads, offered other examples of how it prevented women from having abortions -- by paying for gasoline cards and car repairs to help women keep jobs, paying electric and phone bills, and offering rental assistance for those with severe financial needs.

The Catholic Church opposes abortion because it holds that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death. However, the church also makes clear that all advocacy for justice must use only moral means, with St. John Paul II teaching in his 1993 encyclical, "Veritatis Splendor," that a person cannot "intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order ... even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general."