ARTICLES

They Keep Kicking and Screaming

Sacramento County Enacts Abortion Clinic Buffer Ordinance

BY MARIA KENNEDY

Last December 3, the Sacramento County board of supervisors, on a three-to-two vote, enacted a 20-foot "buffer zone" around every abortion clinic in the county -- this in spite of the fact that Sacramento County has few protesters at abortion clinics. The three supervisors who voted for the ordinance, Roger Dickinson, Illa Collin, and Muriel Johnson, held a press conference at the Feminist Women's Health Center abortion clinic on Wright Street in Sacramento in early December, on the day before the ordinance was enacted. The Wright Street clinic is one of the few places where sidewalk counselors try to offer women alternatives to getting an abortion.

Holding the press conference where they did was, perhaps, symbolic, for, ironically, there has already been a buffer zone at the abortion clinic on Wright Street. The buffer zone stems from an 11-year-old injunction on sidewalk counseling against five pro-lifers at an abortion clinic on J Street in Sacramento: Don Blythe, Murray Lewis, Jay Baggett, Theresa Mari Reali, and John Stoos. The injunction, which Sacramento pro-life activist Bud Reeves says was issued in a "kangaroo court," applies not only to the five sidewalk counselors but to their associates as well. Reeves is a retired naval law enforcement officer who writes a monthly newsletter, Sohlnet News, regarding pro-life issues and regularly prays outside of abortion clinics. When the "J Street Five," as the sidewalk counselors were dubbed, first began to sidewalk counsel at the Sacramento Feminist Women's Health Center on J Street, clinic director Shauna Heckert tried to have them arrested. When told by the Sacramento police department and the district attorney's office that charges could not be filed, since the J Street Five had not broken any laws, Heckert decided to seek other remedies. Not to be deterred, Heckert found an ally in Sacramento superior court judge James Long.

On August 29, 1991, Long ordered the J Street Five to pay more than $155,000 dollars in attorney fees and strictly curtailed their ability to sidewalk counsel. Judge Long also included in his ruling "agents, servants, employees and representatives and all persons, groups and organizations acting in concert with one or more of them [J Street Five]." According to Murray Lewis, one of the J Street Five, since the attorney general's office had not intervened in preventing the alleged harassment of the public by the J Street Five, Judge Long awarded attorney fees to the clinic's attorneys for defending the public.

On January 17, 2003, Twelve years after the preliminary injunction against the J Street Five, Judge Long granted a modification of the injunction to include the Feminist Women's Health Center on Wright Street in Sacramento. Pro-lifers point out the irony of the injunction's modification. The last time one of the J Street Five was at the clinic on Wright Street was 2001. According to the executive director of Life Legal Defense Foundation, Dana Cody, who is familiar with the case, three of the J Street Five have not been at the Wright Street abortion clinic for over 11 years.

Cody points out that it is ludicrous for the three county supervisors to create an ordinance that codifies the injunction. "This is the political equivalent of a four-year-old not getting her way, so she keeps kicking and screaming until she does. The buffer zone is useless due to the non-participation of those enjoined." Cody says that the three supervisors who voted for the ordinance are pandering to voters. "Enter three pandering county supervisors beholding to abortion zealots," said Cody. "Now we will waste county resources debating a dead issue."

The long reach of the injunction is already being felt by sidewalk counselors who were not a part of the J Street Five. Reeves says that in spite of the fact that there is no civil or criminal case pending against him, he received a subpoena from the clinic's attorney, Mark Merwin, to appear in court for questions. Because California law requires that an action be pending against an individual in order so to subpoena him, Reeves' attorneys were advising him not to attend the January 8 deposition hearing. Reeves says that he stood in the 20-foot buffer zone, and that the Wright Street clinic complained to the sheriff's department. When the Sacramento sheriff's department refused to arrest Reeves, the clinic's lawyer issued the subpoena. The sheriff's department has declined to enforce the injunction against Reeves, saying that he is not a party to the original action against the J Street Five. Reeves feels that the reason the Sacramento abortion industry wanted the ordinance, which went into effect January 2, 2004, was to force the sheriff's department to take action against himself and others who are not parties to the injunction. "This is an ordinance, not an injunction, and the sheriff's department has to enforce it," Reeves said.

This is not the first trouble Reeves has experienced under the new ordinance. He attended the December press conference with the three supervisors, signing in as a reporter. Reeves questioned the constitutionality of the ordinance and was told he had to leave the building. A December 2 story in the Sacramento Bee, however, said Reeves "crashed the press conference." Reeves called this is a mischaracterization. When Reeves challenged story and asked the Bee to run a correction, the paper refused. Reeves then sent a letter to the editor, which Reeves says, when published, was "was gutted of the truths they [the Bee] did not want to get out."

In his letter to the editor, Reeves writes, "I walked in when it [the press conference] was in progress, politely introduced myself to several attendees, including Dickinson, whose hand I shook during the introduction. I was asked what media I represented and identified my newsletter. I was asked to sign in on the attendee log sheet and politely complied. This was not a 'crash.' When I asked Dickinson if he was aware of factual information concerning named doctors who work at the clinic, I had obviously crossed over the line of acceptable questions in a gathering of 'pro-choice' people. Clinic Director Shauna Heckert then told me I would have to leave. I did so immediately after asking if I was being 'thrown out.' I was not 'escorted' away.'" The Bee reporter who wrote the story told me that she had characterized Reeves as having crashed the press conference because he had not been invited to it. "It was obvious that he was not a member of the credentialed press," she said.

So far, the ordinance does not seem to be hampering protests at the Wright Street clinic. Pete Stillson, a pro-lifer who regularly protests at the clinic, said that the Sacramento county sheriff's department had come out to the clinic on February 5 while he was parked across the street with his pro-life signs. Stillson said that two cruisers, one with a sergeant who knows him, seemed to be conversing about the situation. "They left without contacting me," he noted.

Perhaps taking her cue from fellow candidate for the ninth assembly district, Roger Dickerson, Sacramento city councilwoman Lauren Hammond is said to also be contemplating an ordinance that will create a bubble zone around abortion clinics in the city of Sacramento.

When asked what was perhaps the reason for back to back ordinances in Sacramento, one veteran pro lifer retorted, "election year politics."

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