Crossing the Line: The Fight Over Roe

Published: May 7, 2022, 4 a.m.

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As the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Florida is a case study in what can happen in states where abortion is easy to access.\\xa0

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Florida is an unexpected safe haven for people seeking abortions in the South. The state has 55 abortion clinics \\u2013 more than seven other Southeastern states combined. But Florida is also increasingly an abortion battleground. Reveal found that calls to police from Florida abortion clinics for disturbances, harassment and violence have doubled since 2016.

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Reporter Laura C. Morel spent months investigating the anti-abortion movement there and observed what it\\u2019s like to be an abortion provider in Jacksonville, where one particular clinic is under siege by a local anti-abortion group that has figured out a way to be near the clinic\\u2019s front door. Protesters rented a room in the same office park as A Woman\\u2019s Choice and now can legally, without trespassing, hold daily protests and even religious ceremonies on the private driveway that leads to the clinic. \\u201cAs abortion providers, we should not have to be harassed going to work every day,\\u201d clinic owner Kelly Flynn told Morel. \\u201cI mean, no one's picketing the urologist that's doing vasectomies.\\u201d\\xa0

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For doctors who perform abortions, threats of violence are not new. In the 1980s and \\u201990s, anti-abortion extremists bombed and blockaded clinics and murdered doctors. We hear from David Gunn Jr., whose father performed abortions and was murdered by a fundamentalist Christian in Pensacola in 1993. His death led to the passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it illegal to intimidate patients and staff at abortion clinics through force, threat of force or physical obstruction. But Morel found that this federal law, known as the FACE Act, does little to protect against the kind of harassment and intimidation providers face today. At A Woman\\u2019s Choice, only one person \\u2013 a man who called in a bomb threat \\u2013 has been prosecuted under the FACE Act.\\xa0

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What qualifies as \\u201cintimidation\\u201d varies by state. In California, it\\u2019s illegal to photograph patients and staff outside abortion clinics. But at A Woman\\u2019s Choice, protesters regularly photograph and film videos of patients, which staffers say makes them feel frazzled and afraid. If Roe v. Wade crumbles, abortion rights advocates warn that\\xa0 this kind of anti-abortion activism will spread, especially in places where abortion will remain legal.

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