On February 28th, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that could add to the increasing difficulty women face in obtaining reproductive health services. NOW says that if the Court's 8-0 decision in Scheidler, et al., v. National Organization for Women (NOW), et al. and Operation Rescue v. NOW, et al. ushers in a return to clinic violence in the United States, the organization is ready to fight in every jurisdiction.

For two decades, NOW has pursued every legal strategy, including three Supreme Court cases, to stave off the violent attacks that gripped this country from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. This case was brought under the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, and had been one of the organization's most successful long-term strategies. A federal jury had found unanimously that these defendants had engaged in a nationwide criminal enterprise to close women's health clinics through extortion, violence and threats of violence, and specified over a hundred acts in furtherance of their efforts.

NOW helped to draft and enact the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances Act in 1994, and intends to use that law to its fullest extent in pursuing those who would use violent means to prevent women from making their own reproductive decisions. Read more of NOW's statement

The filing of the Scheidler case and the resulting injunction, which protected clinics nationwide, contributed to the dramatic reduction in clinic violence that we have witnessed in recent years. Without strong protections against clinic assaults, the legal right to abortion could become meaningless. If women are too terrified to walk into clinics and healthcare providers are too terrified to keep their doors open, then the fight for reproductive freedom will be lost, even with Roe v. Wade still on the books. NARAL Pro-Choice America reports that in the past year there have been an attempted firebombing at a Louisiana clinic, and an incidence of arson in Florida. In the past decade approximately two murders, one attempted murder, two bombings, 18 incidents of arson, 298 acts of vandalism, 642 anthrax threats, 121 bomb threats, and 27 blockades have occurred at clinics. Since 1993, three doctors, two clinic employees, a clinic escort, and a security guard have been murdered. In addition to these seven murders, 17 attempted murders have also occurred since 1991. NOW has vowed to continue to use every legal tool at its disposal to protect women's right to obtain abortion services.