After an Alabama judge rebuffed a lawsuit seeking to block a troubled abortion business from relocating across the street from a grade school, pro-life activists in Alabama are vowing to push for legislation that would bar any abortionist from operating within 2,000 feet of a school campus – the same minimum distance as the law requires between convicted sex offenders and schools.
“We are more motivated than ever to press on in standing for the unborn and their mothers,” Rev. James Henderson, who filed the failed lawsuit, told the Hunstville Times. “If you look in terms of cost effectiveness, new legislation is a better way to go [than appealing the court ruling]. There will be a lot of public input and I know it’s something Republican legislators will support.”
Henderson, who also heads the Christian Coalition of Alabama, would almost certainly be in a position to know – he was recently elected to the executive committee of the state Republican Party. He says his proposal has the backing of Gov. Robert Bentley’s chief legal advisor, David Byrne, Jr., who told Henderson in a letter that he would be “happy to assist” Henderson and any lawmakers he is “closely associated with” to pre-file the proposed legislation and recruit additional sponsors.
But Dalton Johnson, the abortion business’ owner, called Henderson’s proposal “crazy” and suggested that the real problem is the continual presence of pro-life activists engaging in sidewalk counseling and prayer vigils.
“Nobody would know this is an abortion clinic if the protesters weren't out there,” Johnson told AL.com. “If [they] would go on home and stop protesting then it would not be an issue.”
Meanwhile, pro-abortion commentators took umbrage at the parallel between the existing 2,000 ft. buffer zone for sexual molesters and the proposed 2,000 ft. buffer zone for abortionists.
“Equating legal reproductive health services with immoral or unsavory activity — and implying that abortion is in the same category as child molestation — has serious consequences,” complained Tara Culp-Ressler, writing for the left-wing blog ThinkProgress. “This attitude toward the medical procedure helps fuel the persistent abortion stigma that teaches Americans abortion is something to be ashamed about.”
Legality aside, abortionists and their facilities across the nation have repeatedly been caught engaging in what Culp-Ressler calls “immoral or unsavory activity” – including covering up for child molesters. In 2011, Congress launched an investigation into abortion giant Planned Parenthood after undercover video surfaced of its workers covering up the sexual abuse of minors, helping young girls cross state lines to avoid parental notification laws, and coaching them to lie about their age to obtain abortions. Those tapes also appeared to show clinic workers and managers aiding illegal sex traffickers who sought abortions and STD treatments for their child prostitutes.
That same year, an investigation in Kansas revealed that although abortion centers had performed 249 abortions on girls younger than 15 between 2001 and 2003, only four of the girls’ rapes were ever reported to the authorities, despite the fact that abortion workers are mandatory reporters under the law.
More recently, an abortionist in Indiana was accused of failing to report more than 1,200 instances of child sex abuse, resulting in a criminal investigation. And in Colorado, a mother sued Planned Parenthood after they performed an abortion on her 13-year-old daughter without notifying her or the authorities. The cover-up allowed her husband – the girl’s stepfather – to continue raping her daughter unbeknownst to her, until the girl finally broke down and told her about the abuse.