As Kentucky inches closer to becoming the sole state in the country to not have a single abortion clinic, downtown Louisville is a focal point for fundamentalist Christians.
“You’re in jeopardy of losing your soul this morning,” a protester with the far-right group Operation Save America said,WAVE 3 News reported.
The Scripture-wielding hecklers will continue to gather all this week outside the EMW Women’s Surgical Center in the hopes of closing down the clinic.
http://wave.images.worldnow.com/interface/js/WNVideo.js?rnd=592387117;hostDomain=www.wave3.com;playerWidth=630;playerHeight=355;isShowIcon=true;clipId=13516449;flvUri=;partnerclipid=;adTag=News;advertisingZone=;enableAds=true;landingPage=;islandingPageoverride=;playerType=STANDARD_EMBEDDEDscript;controlsType=fixedwave3.com-Louisville News, Weather & Sports
Not stopping there, they also plan to picket doctors’ homes, CBS News reports.
Joining them on the opposite side of the debate were clinic escorts in purple vests, there to shield patients as they go from their cars to the clinic, as well as eight U.S. Marshalls and 15 members of the Louisville Metro Police Department.
“The police were telling people to ‘move, move, get out of the way,’ when people — some people were trying to get through and there was blocking happening, which is amazing,” said Sarah Dugan, a pro-choice volunteer.
“It’s a luxury for us because typically we don’t have that sort presence at all, and the sidewalk gets very congested and very blocked.”
A tiny, tenuous buffer zone measuring 15 feet by 7.5 feet exists outside EMW Women’s Surgical Center — the only barrier keeping the protesters from trying to block the doors as they did in May — after a federal judge ordered its creation Friday in response to a request from federal prosecutors.
A hearing scheduled for Monday aims to decide exactly how long that barrier currently represented by nothing more than black and yellow tape stuck to the ground will continue to exist.
While Operation Save America activists flood the area — its website noting how participants from out of town can get access to a special $89 a night rate at a local Marriott, but only if they stay for the whole week — EMW Women’s Surgical Center still faces a larger threat if it manages to stay open past this week in the form of an openly anti-abortion governor.
On June 15, Matt Bevin’s administration filed “emergency regulations” that added new requirements to agreements that clinics must have with hospitals regarding the transferring of patients.
If EMW Women’s Surgical Center could not comply, they would be shut down.
The move came at a time when EMW is already suing the state in federal court to throw out those transfer agreement requirements in general, claiming they’re an unconstitutional barrier to abortion access.
A trial is scheduled for September.
