Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-95-05419/USCOURTS-caDC-95-05419-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

---

<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 7, 1996 Decided December 10, 1996

No. 95-5419

RANDALL A. TERRY, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

JANET RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 94cv01154)

Mark N. Troobnick argued the cause for appellants. With him on the brief were Jay A. Sekulow,

Colby M. May and James M. Henderson, Sr.

Sushma Soni, Attorney, U.S. Department ofJustice, argued the cause for appellees. With her on the

brief were Frank W. Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. Attorney, and

Mark B. Stern, Attorney.

Celeste Lacy Davis and John Vanderstar were on the brief for intervenor-appellees.

Before: WILLIAMS, SENTELLE and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

TATEL, Circuit Judge: In this case, anti-abortion protesters challenge the constitutionality of

the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Enacted in 1994, that statute prohibits the use or

threat of force or physical obstruction against a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive

health services, including abortions. Agreeing with the district court and joining four of our sister

circuits, we sustain the constitutionality of the Access Act. Because the legislative record contains

sufficient findings to conclude that violent and obstructive protest activities substantially affect

interstate commerce in reproductive health services, Congress did not exceed its commerce power

in enacting the statute. The Access Act also does not violate the First Amendment. It prohibits

conduct, not speech, and its prohibition is narrowly tailored to further the Government's legitimate

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 1 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

interest in providing safe access to reproductive health services.

I

Reacting to a nationwide pattern of blockades, vandalism, and violence aimed at abortion

clinics and their patients and employees, Congress enacted the Freedomof Accessto Clinic Entrances

Act. 18 U.S.C. § 248 (1994). Referred to throughout this opinion as the Access Act, the statute

provides:

(a) Prohibited Activities.Whoever

(1) by force or threat offorce or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures,

intimidates or interferes with ... any person because that person is or has been, or in

order to intimidate such person or any other person or any class of persons from,

obtaining or providing reproductive health services;

....

(3) intentionally damages or destroys the property of a facility, or attemptsto

do so, because such facility provides reproductive health services ...

shall be subject to [criminal penalties and civilremedies], except that a parent or legal

guardian of a minor shall not be subject to any penalties or civil remedies under this

section for such activities insofar as they are directed exclusively at that minor.

18 U.S.C. § 248. According to the Access Act's rules of construction, nothing in it "shall be

construed ... to prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful

demonstration) protected from legal prohibition by the First Amendment to the Constitution...." Id.

§ 248(d)(1). The statute also defines the terms "interfere with," "intimidate," "physical obstruction,"

and "reproductive health services." Id. § 248(e)(2)-(5). "Physical obstruction," for example, means

"rendering impassable ingress to or egress from a facility that provides reproductive health services

... or rendering passage to or from such a facility ... unreasonably difficult or hazardous." Id. §

248(e)(4). Criminal penalties under the Access Act vary depending on whether the offense was

nonviolent or violent, and whether the offender was a first-time violator or a repeat offender. Id. §

248(b).

On May 26, 1994, the day the President signed the Access Act into law, appellants filed suit

in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the constitutionality of

the Act both on its face and "as applied or threatened to be applied" to them. Appellants are

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 2 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

anti-abortion activists from New York, Virginia, Ohio, and the District of Columbia, whose protest

activities take place in the District of Columbia and elsewhere in the United States. Compl. at 3-5.

Appellants picket abortion clinics, distribute literature, offer "sidewalk counseling" to women entering

abortion facilities, and lead anti-abortion protesters in public prayer and slogan chanting. Id. at 6-9.

Several appellants participated in "sit-ins," which "did have the effect, temporarily, ofinterfering with

and blocking accessto abortion facilities." Id. at 9. According to five of the six appellants, protesting

against abortion "serves a higher and more compelling purpose than that served by traditional laws

against trespass and blocking access to abortion facilities." Id. at 8.

The district court granted the Government's motion for judgment on the pleadings pursuant

to FED. R. CIV. P. 12(c). Finding that the statute " "protects and regulates commercial enterprises

operating in interstate commerce,' " the court ruled that Congress had the power to enact the statute

under the Commerce Clause. Terry v. Reno, Civ. No. 94-1154, slip op. at 11 (D.D.C. Nov. 21,

1995) (quoting Cheffer v. Reno, 55 F.3d 1517, 1520 (11th Cir. 1995)). Relying on American Life

League, Inc. v. Reno, 47 F.3d 642 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 55 (1995), the district court

held that because the Access Act was viewpoint-neutral and narrowly tailored to further substantial

government interests, it did not violate the First Amendment. Terry, slip op. at 5-8. The district

court also ruled that the Act did not violate principles of due process or equal protection, that it did

not violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq. (1994), and

that plaintiffs' Eighth Amendment claims were not ripe for review. Id. at 9-13.

In their "Statement of the Issues," appellants list nine challenges to the Access Act.

Appellants' Br., at vi. By failing to brief five of these challenges, they have waived them. See FED.

R.APP.P. 28(a)(6); Democratic Cent. Comm. v. Washington Metro. Area Transit Comm'n, 485 F.2d

786, 790 n.16 (D.C. Cir. 1973) (where petitioners offer "no argument whatever" in support of certain

issues on appeal, court will decline to consider them). Rule 28(a)(6) requires that the argument

section of an appellate brief "contain the contentions of the appellant on the issues presented, and the

reasons therefor ... ." FED. R. APP. P. 28(a)(6). Simply listing the issues on review without briefing

them does not preserve them. Cratty v. United States, 163 F.2d 844, 851 (D.C. Cir. 1947) (where

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 3 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

certain grounds for appeal are "stated by the appellants but not urged in their brief," they are treated

as abandoned). We therefore address only the arguments appellants have briefed: that the Access

Act exceeds Congress's commerce power; that it abridges appellants' First Amendment rights; that

it violatesthe Equal Protection Clause; and that the district court erred in granting the Government's

motion for judgment on the pleadings.

II

Appellants' Commerce Clause challenge rests on the Supreme Court's recent decision in

United States v. Lopez, 115 S. Ct. 1624 (1995). There, the Court struck down the Gun-Free School

Zones Act of 1990, 18 U.S.C. § 922(q) (1994), which made possession of a gun within a school zone

a federal offense. Of the three categories of activity the Court held that Congress could regulate

pursuant to its Commerce Clause authority, only the third is relevant to this case: Congress can

regulate activities if it has a rational basis for concluding that they "substantially affect interstate

commerce." Lopez, 115 S. Ct. at 1630. The Lopez Court found that possession of guns within

school zones was not commercial in nature, that the statute did not contain a jurisdictional element

to ensure on a case-by-case basis that the gun in question was connected with interstate commerce,

and that Congress had made no findings about the effect gun possession in school zones has on

interstate commerce. Id. at 1630-32. The Court then considered and rejected the Government's

arguments, developed only after the statute's constitutionality was challenged in court, linking the

possession of guns near schools to interstate commerce. Id. at 1632-33. Because it could not

conclude that Congress had a rational basis for finding that gun possession within school zones had

a substantial effect on interstate commerce, the Court declared the statute unconstitutional. Id. at

1634.

Lopez's impact on the limits of the commerce power is a hotly debated issue. Because the

Access Act does not test those limits, we need not enter that fray. Indeed, we can begin where the

Lopez Court could notwith congressional findings regarding the effect on interstate commerce of

anti-abortion violence and blockades of abortion clinics.

Although no interstate commerce findings appear in the text ofthe statute, we consider "even

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 4 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

congressional committee findings" regarding the effect on interstate commerce of the regulated

activity. Lopez, 115 S. Ct. at 1631; see, e.g., Preseault v. ICC, 494 U.S. 1, 17 (1990) (citing House

Report in discussion of congressional findings regarding effect on interstate commerce of federal

"rails-to-trails" statute). The Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, which held hearings

on anti-abortion violence and drafted the bill that ultimately became the Access Act, concluded that

forseveralreasons abortion clinics do engage in interstate commerce: they obtain medical equipment

and suppliesthrough interstate commerce, they treat patients who travel interstate to obtain services,

their employees travel interstate, and they own and lease office space and generate income. S. REP.

NO. 103-117, at 31 (1993).

Having concluded that abortion clinics engage in interstate commerce, the Committee also

documented the effect violent and disruptive anti-abortion protest activities have on clinics and their

operations. According to the Senate Report:

A nationwide campaign of anti-abortion blockades, invasions, vandalism and

outright violence is barring access to facilities that provide abortion services and

endangering the lives and well-being of the health care providers who work there and

the patients who seek their services. This conduct is interfering with the exercise of

the constitutional right of a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy, and

threatens to exacerbate an already severe shortage of qualified providers available to

perform safe and legal abortions in this country.

Id. at 3. The Report chronicled escalating violence against abortion providers and clinics, including

eighty-four assaults, thirty-six bombings, eighty-one arsons,seventy-one chemical attacks, 131 death

threats, two kidnappings, 327 clinic invasions, over 6,000 blockades, andas of 1993one murder.

Id. at 3-11. According to the Committee, protester violence and blockades forced temporary or

permanent closure of abortion facilities, causing doctorsto refuse to performabortions and producing

a scarcity of both clinics and physicians. Id. at 14-17. The number of doctors providing abortion

services declined in thirty-fourstates between 1985 and 1988. Id. at 17 n.29. Some doctors traveled

to severalstates, some for hundreds of miles, to perform abortions at clinics which had no physicians

of their own. Id. at 31 & n.46. Patients, too, sometimes traveled hundreds of miles to obtain

abortions, either within their states or at clinicsin other states. Id. at 31. The Committee also found

that in some rural areas, arson and chemical attacks had forced medical clinics to stop providing not

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 5 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

only abortions, but other reproductive services as well, including pre- and post-natal care. Id. at 5-6.

According to the Committee, some anti-abortion organizations engaged in concentrated

nationwide campaigns against abortion clinics and physicians providing abortions. Id. at 11-14.

Relying on statements of those groups' leaders, the Committee concluded that clinic blockades,

threats against employees, and other violent and obstructive activities have a single goal: to eliminate

the practice of abortion by closing abortion clinics. Id. at 11.

Although this legislative record amply supports Congress's finding that the activities of

anti-abortion activists affect interstate commerce, this conclusion does not end our analysis; Lopez

holds that the effect on interstate commerce must be "substantial." Lopez, 115 S. Ct. at 1630. As

the Court acknowledged, the standard was not always so demanding: "[O]ur case law has not been

clear whether an activity must "affect' or "substantially affect' interstate commerce in order to be

within Congress' power to regulate it...." Id. In one case, the Court described the standard this way:

The task of a court that is asked to determine whether a particular exercise of

congressional power is valid under the Commerce Clause is relatively narrow. The

court must defer to a congressional finding that a regulated activity affects interstate

commerce, if there is any rational basis for such a finding.

Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining &Reclamation Ass'n, Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 276 (1981) (citing Heart

of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 258 (1964), and Katzenbach v. McClung, 379

U.S. 294, 303-04 (1964)); see also Preseault, 494 U.S. at 17 ("[W]e must defer to a congressional

finding that a regulated activity affects interstate commerce "if there is any rational basis for such a

finding.' " (quoting Hodel )).

We think it obvious that Congress's failure to use the magic word "substantial" is not fatal to

the statute's constitutionality. For one thing, since Congress passed the Access Act prior to Lopez,

it understandably did not find that activities proscribed by the statute "substantially" affect interstate

commerce; it simply found that those activities "affect" interstate commerce. S.REP. NO. 103-117,

at 31. Moreover, if Congress "normally is not required to make formal findings" as to the burdens

that particular activities place on interstate commerce, Lopez, 115 S. Ct. at 1631, then Congress

surely need not make formal findings that the activities "substantially" affect interstate commerce.

Just as we can examine the legislative history to assure ourselves that Congress made findings

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 6 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

regarding the impact of anti-abortion activities on interstate commerce, supra at 6-7, we can, as

appellants' counsel conceded at oral argument, examine those findings to assure ourselves that the

impact is substantial. In light of the Senate Report's detailed review of the effect violent and

obstructive anti-abortion protest has had upon the availability of abortions nationwide, we have no

doubt that Congress found the impact of such activities on interstate commerce to be substantial.

Appellants argue that the Access Act regulates not abortion clinics, but protest against

abortion clinics, and that Congress may not regulate protest under the Commerce Clause. Although

two circuits have found that the Act does in fact regulate the provision of reproductive health

services, United States v. Wilson, 73 F.3d 675, 683 (7th Cir. 1995) (Act regulates provision of health

services "by preventing its obstruction"), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 47 (1996); Cheffer v. Reno, 55

F.3d at 1520 (unlike statute challenged in Lopez, Access Act "does regulate commercial activity, the

provision of reproductive health services"), we need not address that issue. As counsel conceded at

oral argument, Congress has authority to regulate "activities that substantially affect interstate

commerce." Lopez, 115 S. Ct. at 1630 (emphasis added). The regulated activityin this case,

interfering with abortion clinicsneed not be commercial, so long as its effect on interstate

commerce issubstantial. As the Supreme Court said in a different context, "An enterprise surely can

have a detrimental influence on interstate or foreign commerce without having its own profit-seeking

motives." National Org. for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 114 S. Ct. 798, 804 (1994). Like the

Eleventh Circuit, we find no support for "the proposition that Congress' Commerce Clause authority

extends only to the regulation of commercial actors, and not private individuals who interfere with

commercial activities in interstate commerce." Cheffer, 55 F.3d at 1520 n.6; see also United States

v. Dinwiddie, 76 F.3d 913, 920 (8th Cir. 1996) (same), petition for cert. filed (U.S. Aug. 16, 1996)

(No. 96-5615); Wilson, 73 F.3d at 684-85 (same).

We can quicklydispose of appellants'remainingCommerceClause challenges. Although they

may be correct that, by itself, interstate travel by patients and staffisinsufficient to justify finding that

clinic operations affect interstate commerce, their reliance on Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health

Clinic, 113 S. Ct. 753 (1993), is misplaced. Bray's holding that anti-abortion protest does not

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 7 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

implicate the constitutional right to interstate travel, id. at 762-63, is irrelevant to the inquiry in this

case, i.e., whether patients in fact travel interstate to obtain abortions. In fact, the Bray Court's

implicit acceptance of the district court's findings that substantial numbers of women traveled

interstate to have abortions reinforces the congressional findings underlying the Access Act. Id. at

762. In any event, travel by patients and staff was not the Committee's only finding regarding

whether abortion clinics operate in interstate commerce. The Committee also found that clinics

purchase equipment and supplies in interstate commerce, own and lease office space, and generate

income. S. REP. NO. 103-117, at 31. Combined with such findings, the interstate travel of patients

and staffsupports the conclusion that the Access Act does not exceed Congress's Commerce Clause

power.

Appellants' argument that the "decrease in the number of abortions" is insufficient to justify

the statute ignores the critical fact: the marked decrease in the availability of abortions nationwide,

a decrease Congress attributed both to the forced closure of clinics by blockades or violence, and to

the decreasing number of physicians willing to perform abortions because of protesters' threats. "It

is this threat to a national market," the Seventh Circuit observed, "which Congress found to be

scarce and declining in availability, that distinguishesCongress's authorityto regulate in this case from

its probable lack of authority to regulate, for example, shoplifting...." Wilson, 73 F.3d at 682

(emphasis added). 

Aside from their unsuccessful challenges to the congressionalfindings, appellants' only other

Commerce Clause argument isthat the Access Act isinvalid because it lacks a jurisdictional element.

We do not view Lopez as holding that federal criminalstatutes must contain jurisdictional elements.

If a jurisdictional element were critical to a statute's constitutionality, the Court in Lopez would not

have gone on to examine the Government's proffered rationales for the constitutionality of the gun

possession statute. See Lopez, 115 S. Ct. at 1632-34. Lopez's fundamental proposition is that

Congressmust ensure that itsCommerceClause power to regulate non-commercial activities extends

to only those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Congress may do so either

through its own legislative findings or by including a jurisdictional element in the statute; it need not

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 8 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

do both. Where, as here, detailed congressional findings support the conclusion that the activities

prohibited by the Access Act substantially affect interstate commerce, the absence of a jurisdictional

element is not fatal to the statute's constitutionality. See Wilson, 73 F.3d at 685 ("In discussing the

lack of a jurisdictional element in Lopez, the Court simply did not state or imply that all criminal

statutes must have such an element, or that allstatutes with such an element would be constitutional,

or that any statute without such an element is per se unconstitutional.").

In concluding that the Access Act satisfies Lopez, we think it significant that the statute

fundamentally differs from the statute struck down in Lopez. The Access Act prohibits

activitiesforce, threats, physical obstruction of accessto or fromreproductive health facilities, and

physical damage to those facilities. The statute invalidated in Lopez did not prohibit active

interference ofthissort, but rathersimple possession of a gun near a school. This difference is telling.

Asthe Court explained in Lopez, in order to justify the constitutionality of prohibiting gun possession

near schools, the Government had to engage in several multi-step analyses to link gun possession to

interstate commerce: (1) gun possession near schools leads to gun use, which in turn leads to violent

crime, which in turn imposes substantial costs on society, which in the end affects interstate

commerce; and (2) gun possession near schools threatens the educational environment, which

hampersthe educational process, which creates a "less productive citizenry," which adversely affects

"the Nation's economic well-being," and which in the end adversely affects interstate commerce.

Lopez, 115 S. Ct. at 1632. In the case before us, the chain connecting the prohibited activity and

interstate commerce contains only one link: violent and obstructive activity outside abortion clinics

adversely affects interstate commerce in reproductive health services. In enacting the Access Act,

Congress did not exceed its Commerce Clause power.

III

We turn to appellants' First Amendment challenges to the Act. Applying long-standing

Supreme Court precedents, we find the statute compatible with the First Amendment.

To begin with, the Access Act does not target protected speech. It prohibits three types of

conduct: use of force, threat of force, and physical obstruction. In this sense, the Access Act is

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 9 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

virtually identical to the statute upheld in United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968), which also

punished conductthe destruction of draft cards. Moreover, the Supreme Court has ruled that the

Government can punish all three types of conduct covered by the Access Act without running afoul

of the First Amendment. The first, physical assault, "is not by any stretch of the imagination

expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment." Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476, 484

(1993). Threats are not protected speech either. Madsen v. Women's Health Ctr., Inc., 114 S. Ct.

2516, 2529 (1994) ("Threats to [clinic] patients or their families, however communicated, are

proscribable under the First Amendment."). Consistent with the First Amendment, the Government

may also punish physical obstruction that makes passage to or from a reproductive health facility

impossible or unreasonably hazardous. Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 611, 617 (1968). Protesters

have no First Amendment right to "cordon off a street, or [the] entrance to a public or private

building, and allow no one to pass who did not agree to listen to their exhortations." Cox v.

Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 555 (1965). Going "beyond protest," such activity "invade[s] property

rights." United States v. Soderna, 82 F.3d 1370, 1375 (7th Cir. 1996), petition for cert. filed, 65

U.S.L.W. 3086 (July 26, 1996) (No. 96-141). O'Brien, Mitchell, Madsen, and Cox thus squarely

govern this case. 

That conduct prohibited by the Access Act might have expressive value, such as in the case

ofsit-ins which "temporarily ... interfer[e] with and block[ ] accessto abortion facilities," see Compl.

at 9, does not alter our conclusion regarding the Act's constitutionality. Congress may regulate

conduct with expressive content without running afoul of the First Amendment if the legislation

"furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated

to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment

freedomsis no greater than is essential to the furtherance ofthat interest." O'Brien, 391 U.S. at 377.

The Access Act meets this standard.

The statute furthers several important government interests, not the least of which are

ensuring access to lawful health services and protecting the constitutional right of women seeking

abortions and other pregnancy-related treatment. As in O'Brien, the Government's interest is

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 10 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

unrelated to the suppression of free expression. The statute at issue in O'Brien prohibited destroying

draft cards, not destroying draft cards by anti-war protesters. Here the statute prohibits interfering

with reproductive health services, not interfering with those services by anti-abortion demonstrators.

The statute therefore "condemns only the independent noncommunicative impact of conduct within

itsreach." Id. at 382. Moreover, the Act protects individuals providing and obtaining "reproductive

health services," not just abortions. The statute defines "reproductive health services" to include

"medical, surgical, counselling or referral services relating to the human reproductive system,

including services relating to pregnancy or the termination of a pregnancy." 18 U.S.C. § 248(e)(5).

The Access Act thus does not play favorites: it protects from violent or obstructive activity not only

abortion clinics, but facilities providing pre-pregnancy and pregnancy counseling services, as well as

facilities counseling alternatives to abortion. See Riely v. Reno, 860 F. Supp. 693, 702 (D. Ariz.

1994) (Access Act "would apply to an individual who spray paints the words "KEEP ABORTION

LEGAL' on a facility providing counseling regarding abortion alternatives as well asto the individual

who spray paints the words "DEATH CAMP' on a facility providing abortion services."). Because

the Act criminalizes only violent or obstructive conduct against reproductive health facilities or those

seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, the views of those arrested for committing

violence against or obstructing people obtaining or providing reproductive health services are

irrelevant.

That the majority ofthose whose conduct the statute punishes probably oppose abortion does

not call the statute's neutrality into question. In O'Brien, the Court upheld a law prohibiting willful

destruction of draft cards even though most people destroying their draft cards opposed the Vietnam

War. There is, after all, "no disparate-impact theory in First Amendment law." Dinwiddie, 76 F.3d

at 923. Appellants "cannot obtain constitutional immunity from prosecution by violating a statute

more frequently than any other group." Soderna, 82 F.2d at 1376 (citing Madsen, 114 S. Ct. at

2523-24).

The Access Act survives O'Brien's third inquiry: the statute is narrowly tailored to further

the Government's interests. As the Eighth Circuit put it in Dinwiddie, the statute merely "forbids

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 11 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

physical interference with people going about their own lawfulprivate business." Dinwiddie, 76 F.3d

at 924. The Act also leaves open ample alternative means for communication: "In a non-violent,

non-obstructive manner, protestors may stillstand outside reproductive health facilities and express

their anti-abortion message. They may still proclaim their views and make their pleas by voice, signs,

handbills, symbolic gestures and other expressive means." American Life League, 47 F.3d at 652

(footnote omitted).

Our conclusion that the Access Act satisfies the O'Brien test might be different if,

notwithstanding the Act's clear focus on conduct, the Government were using it to prosecute

appellantsfor their First Amendment activity. But this is not such a case. Appellants' complaint does

not allege that defendants applied the Act to them or their protest activities, nor have they amended

the complaint to include such allegations. Indeed, they filed their complaint on the day the Access

Act was signed into law.

The statute's motive requirementthat a person violates the Act by engaging in proscribed

conduct "because" a person is obtaining or providing reproductive health servicesis not, as

appellants claim, fatal to its constitutionality. Again, Wisconsin v. Mitchell controls. The statute at

issue in that case enhanced the sentence for aggravated battery if the aggressor " "intentionally

select[ed]' " his victimon the basis of his " "race, religion, color, disability,sexualorientation, national

origin or ancestry....' " Mitchell, 508 U.S. at 480 (quoting Wis. Stat. § 939.645(1)(b) (1989-1990)).

The Wisconsin Supreme Court had invalidated the statute because, in its view, the law criminalized

bigoted thoughtit " "punishe[d] the "because of" aspect ofthe defendant'sselection, the reason the

defendant selected the victim, the motive behind the selection.' " Id. at 482 (quoting Mitchell v.

Wisconsin, 485 N.W.2d 807, 812 (1992)). Reversing, the Supreme Court found that motive "plays

the same role under the Wisconsin statute asit does under federal and state antidiscrimination laws,"

which the Court has consistently upheld against constitutional challenge. Mitchell, 508 U.S. at 487

(citing Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 628 (1984) (no First Amendment right to

discriminate in membership of charitable organization on basis of sex in violation of state

antidiscrimination law); Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 78 (1984) (no First Amendment

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 12 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

right to discriminate in hiring on basis ofsex in violation ofTitle VII); Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S.

160, 176 (1976) (no First Amendment right to discriminate on basis of race in selecting who may

attend a private school)). The Mitchell Court distinguished the ordinance invalidated in R.A.V. v.

City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992), from the Wisconsin statute it upheld, pointing out that the

former explicitly targeted expression" "fighting words' that insult, or provoke violence, "on the

basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender' "while the Wisconsin statute targeted conduct

unprotected by the First Amendment. Mitchell, 508 U.S. at 487. Nothing distinguishes the case

before us today from Mitchell. Like the statute in Mitchell, the Access Act targets not expression,

but conduct. As the Court recognized in R.A.V., "Where the government does not target conduct

on the basis of its expressive content, acts are not shielded from regulation merely because they

express a discriminatory idea or philosophy." R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 390. The Act's motive

requirement, as with similar requirementsin other federalstatutes,see, e.g., 42 U.S.C. § 3631 (1994)

( Fair Housing Act provision prohibiting use or threat of force against person because he or she

participatesin certain housing programs); 42 U.S.C. § 1971(b) (1994) (Voting Rights Act provision

stating that no person shall threaten another for the purpose of interfering with his or her right to

vote), does not make the Access Act an instrument for the suppression ofspeech. It merely narrows

the Act's reach.

Remaining are appellants' claims that the Access Act is overbroad and vague. A statute is

overbroad only if "it reaches a substantial number of impermissible applications." New York v.

Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 771 (1982); see City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 458 (1987) ("Only a

statute that is substantially overbroad may be invalidated on its face."). Contrary to appellants'

argument, the Access Act prohibits only a narrow range of conduct: the use or threat of force, or

nonviolent physical obstruction, intended to prevent accessto or the provision ofreproductive health

services. Moreover, the statute contains language barring its application to expressive conduct

protected by the First Amendment, such as picketing or other peaceful demonstration. 18 U.S.C. §

248(d)(1). Appellants suggest two allegedly impermissible applications of the statute:

[The Access Act] criminalizes "threats' that the person who is uttering the "threat'will

harm himself if another person obtains or provides an abortion. Sec. 248(e)(3)

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 13 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

(definition of "intimidate'). [The Access Act] therefore criminalizes a genuine threat

to go on an extended "hunger strike'i.e., risk "bodily harm' to oneselfif another

person obtains or provides an abortion. Under section 248(a)(1) and (e)(3), such a

"threat' would constitute criminal intimidation because it would "place a person in

reasonable apprehension of bodily harm ... to another.' [The Access Act's] definition

of "intimidation' would also include the "harm' of increased medical riska harm

abortion advocates claim is inherent in any delay or denial of abortion (even by

voluntary choice of childbirth).

Appellants' Br., at 37. When "judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep," neither of

these examples renders the statute overbroad. Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 615 (1973).

We are equally unpersuaded by appellants' vagueness challenge. A statute is

unconstitutionallyvague ifit does not give a "person of ordinaryintelligence a reasonable opportunity

to know what is prohibited." Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108 (1972). In arguing

that the terms "interfere with" and "intimidate" are vague, appellants ignore the statute's explicit

definition of these terms. "Interfere with" means "to restrict a person's freedom of movement." 18

U.S.C. § 248(e)(2). "Intimidate" means "to place a person in reasonable apprehension of bodily harm

to him- or herself or to another." Id. § 248(e)(3). Because the Supreme Court has held that the term

" "unreasonably interfere' plainly require[s] no "guess[ing] at [its] meaning,' " Cameron, 390 U.S. at

616, we fail to see how the term "interfere with," confined as it is by the narrow definition in the

statute, could possibly be vague. We agree with the Fifth Circuit, moreover, that the term

"intimidate" is "obviously widely used and commonly understood in statutory contexts." CISPES v.

FBI, 770 F.2d 468, 477 (5th Cir. 1985); see also United States v. Gilbert, 813 F.2d 1523, 1530 (9th

Cir.) (rejecting vagueness challenge to Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3631, which prohibits the use

or threat of force to "injure, intimidate, or interfere with" a person because he or she is participating

in certain housing programs), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 860 (1987); Dinwiddie, 76 F.3d at 924

(definition of "intimidate" in Access Act similar to that of an element in crime of assault). While "the

fertile legal "imagination can conjure up hypothetical casesin which the meaning of [disputed] terms

will be in nice question,' " Grayned, 408 U.S. at 110 n.15 (quoting American Communications Ass'n

v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 412 (1950)), the Access Act defines its terms narrowly and in clearly

understandable language.

Protest, picketing, and other like activities lie at the core of free speech guaranteed by the

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 14 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

First Amendment. For decades, courts have protected such forms of protest, regardless of the

popularity of the protesters or their cause. Because this case is about only whether Congress can

protect clinics engaged in the lawful provision of reproductive health services from physical

disruption, our decision does not signal a weakening of those First Amendment protections.

IV

Buried in one sentence of appellants' brief is their argument that the Access Act violates the

Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee. According to appellants, since the statute allows

labor but not anti-abortion picketing, it limits a particular form of social protest. Because

anti-abortion activists are not a suspect class, and because the Access Act infringes upon no

constitutionally protected rights, see Part III supra, we ask only whether Congress had a rational

basis for prohibiting violent or obstructive acts committed with intent to interfere with the provision

of lawful medical services. For the same reasons that the Access Act survives appellants' First

Amendment challenges, it clearly passes this more deferential test.

V

We turn finally to appellants' argument that the district court should not have granted the

Government's Rule 12(c) motion because outstanding questions of fact precluded judgment on the

pleadings. Specifically, they claim that the district court disregarded evidence that the Government

has interpreted the Access Act to "proscribe[ ]" protesting, picketing, leafletting, singing, chanting,

and the like, and that the Attorney General has attempted to enjoin anti-abortion protesters from

engaging in those activities near abortion clinics. This argument ignores the Government's answers

to appellants' requests for admission, where the Government stated, under oath, that none of

appellants' First Amendment activities violates the Access Act.

Appellants' argument also comes perilously close to misstating the record. In one of the cases

they rely on to support their claim that the Government is using the Access Act to punish First

Amendment activity, the Government filed suit against several anti-abortion protesters who had

stalked and threatened clinic employees and who had welded themselves inside cars blocking access

to an abortion clinic. United States v. Lindgren, No. A3-95-4 (D.N.D. complaint filed Jan. 18, 1995).

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 15 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

That complaint targeted neither speech nor picketing. Moreover, the remedy the Government

soughta 200-foot buffer zone around the clinic and its employeeswas intended to protect

protesters' First Amendment rights while also protecting the constitutional right to an abortion. Id.

at 9-10. In each of the other three cases appellants rely on, the Government prosecuted not speech,

but only violent or disruptive conduct: blocking access to a clinic by welding protesters inside cars

parked against clinic doors, Milwaukee Women's Med. Serv's., Inc. v. Brock, Civ. No. 94-C-0793

(E.D. Wis. complaint in intervention filed Dec. 20, 1994) at 3; and threatening, stalking, and

assaulting clinic employees, United States v. Smith, No. 74:95CV-0025 (N.D. Ohio complaint filed

Jan. 4, 1995) at 3-6, United States v. Dinwiddie, No. 95-1101-CV-W-8 (W.D. Mo. complaint filed

Jan. 1995) at 2. In each case, the requested relief included buffer zones tailored to specific violations

of the Access Act. See Smith, Compl. at 7-8 (requesting injunctive relief including 50-foot buffer

zone around clinic and 25-foot buffer zone around doctor's home); Brock, Compl. at 5 (seeking

injunctive relief including 50-foot buffer zone around clinic); Dinwiddie (W.D. Mo. temporary

restraining order filed Jan. 6, 1995) at 7 (temporarily restraining defendant from locating within 500

feet of any reproductive health facility within court'sjurisdiction). See generally Madsen, 114 S. Ct.

at 2527-28 (upholding reasonably circumscribed buffer zones as remedy for violations of the law by

anti-abortion protesters). The cases relied on by appellants thus fall far short of showing that the

Government uses the Access Act to "proscribe" protected speech. Those cases involve a wholly

separate question: whether courts sitting in equity may enjoin activities that do not violate the Act

as a remedy for activities that quite clearly do violate the Act. That question has no bearing here.

Appellants argue that the District Court also ignored evidence that the Government was not

applying the Act evenhandedly. Although they claim that the Government has refused to prosecute

abortion clinic escorts and employees who assault and threaten anti-abortion protesters, appellants

make no selective enforcement allegation in their complaint, nor have they amended their complaint

to state such a claim. In ruling on the Government's Rule 12(c) motion, the district court properly

refused to consider evidence outside the scope of the complaint. See Haynesworth v. Miller, 820

F.2d 1245, 1249 n.11 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (Rule 12(c) requires movant to show, at close of pleadings,

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 16 of 17
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

that no genuine issue of material fact remains to be resolved).

We affirm the judgment of the district court.

So ordered.

USCA Case #95-5419 Document #239776 Filed: 12/10/1996 Page 17 of 17