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AFTER DECADES OF NOISY PROTESTS-AND VIOLENCE, ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVISTS ARE RELYING ON A NEW "STEALTH STRATEGY" TO SHUT DOWN CLINICS.
It was counseling day last spring at the Hope Medical Group for Women, a small brick abortion clinic tucked discreetly along a street of upscale shops in Shreveport, Louisiana. In the waiting room, pregnant women paged through magazines. At the front desk, a receptionist monitored the clinic's perimeter on an overhead screen and buzzed in patients through a locked door, alert for signs of trouble from anti-abortion activists. Robin Rothrock, the clinic administrator, was preparing for the day's appointments when the telephone rang.
The caller, a pro-choice attorney who represented the clinic, had some disturbing news: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court ofAppeals had thrown out a lawsuit filed by Rothrock and four other providers that challenged Louisiana's newest anti-abortion law, a measure so sweeping it could instantly shut down every clinic in the state. The "civilliability law," as it's usually called, would allow any woman who has had the procedure to sue the doctor for up to 10 years-not just for her own injuries, but also for "damages occasioned by the unborn child." With no limit to the amount doctors could be ordered to pay, one big judgment in favor of a woman who regretted her abortion could drive a clinic out of business.
Earlier, a lower federal court had found the law unconstitutional, saying it would limit women's access to abortions by discouraging doctors from providing them. But the appellate judges reversed the decision, ruling that providers could not sue the state over the issue in federal court.
"What?" Rothrock asked the caller, hardly believing the news. She had assumed the judges would find the law so absurd that it would die quietly in the courts. When she learned it had been resurrected, all she could think of were horror films. "It was like a really scary movie, when you think the bad guy is dead, and suddenly he rises up and grabs you," Rothrock says. "There's no way a physician can perform an abortion with this law on the books. It's an insane level of exposure."
While the ruling panicked pro-choice advocates like Rothrock, it received little attention in the media beyond a...