Victory for sidewalk counselors in Queens

MEGAN BASHAM, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the last day of July, 2018.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Megan Basham.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard, fresh off vacation, and I’m so pleased to have good news to report from a case we covered just three weeks ago.

Pro-life sidewalk counselors in New York can continue peacefully appealing to women entering abortion facilities. Listen to one of the pro-life counselors outside one of the busiest abortion businesses in the country, called Choices:

GEORGE: What seems like a temporary fix, leaves a lifetime of heartbreak. Of pain, of shame and guilt. You don’t have to let that be your lot in life today. You can choose to do the right thing and do what you know is right.

REICHARD: That’s Ron George, one of 13 counselors sued by New York’s attorney general back in June 2017. These members of Church at the Rock’s pro-life ministry were charged under a federal law that forbids threats, obstruction, or violence outside abortion businesses.

But U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon ruled against the state a few days ago. Judge Amon found the sidewalk counselors stayed within the bounds of lawful conduct. She also found that accusations of physical violence were actually incidental jostling caused by abortion facility escorts—who outnumber the sidewalk counselors two to one.

An appeal is possible, but unlikely, because the ruling is based on lack of evidence in the case, not on a legal principle.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) In this Jan. 25, 2017, file photo, the Capitol in Washington at sunrise.

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