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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Montana advances bill to restrict abortion protesters

Associated Press

HELENA – Abortion protesters outside health care clinic will have to keep their distance from patients or be accused of a crime, under a bill tentatively approved Monday by the Montana Senate.

The measure was decried as infringing on the rights of those who gather to voice their objections to abortion. And it was praised as a valuable tool to ensure women do not have to pass through a gantlet of demonstrators to enter or leave a clinic.

“People ought to be able to do their lawful business without undue interference,” said Sen. Jim Shockley, a Victor Republican and the sponsor of the bill in the Senate. “It’s about the freedom to do what the law now allows.”

“This bill limits freedom of speech,” countered Sen. Joe Balyeat, R-Bozeman.

Protesters will be barred from even handing anti-abortion literature to those entering or leaving a clinic and that, he said, will prompt abortion foes to resort to other means such as shouting at the passing patients.

“It will raise the level of rhetoric,” he said. “It will create a bigger scene than we have now.”

The bill, which narrowly passed the House 50-48 in February, squeaked by the Senate, 26-24. It faces a final Senate vote today.

The bill represents one of only two abortion-related measures with a chance of passing the Legislature this year. The other merely removes a ban on physician assistants performing abortions, which was overturned as unconstitutional by the Montana Supreme Court in 1999.

The proposal endorsed by the Senate on Monday makes it a crime to obstruct, hinder or block a person from entering or leaving any health care facility. It also prohibits a person from coming within eight feet of a patient who is within 36 feet of the entrance to such a facility.

While the bill makes no mention of abortion, that was the focus of the debate in the House and again in the Senate.