Council tables effort to quiet anti-abortion protests outside West Loop clinic
CHICAGO — A proposal to create a quiet zone around a downtown women’s clinic frequently targeted by anti-abortion protests was deferred Wednesday, prompting a strong response from its sponsor.
“This delay will not stand. This will pass,” Ald. Bill Conway of the 34th Ward said.
He called it a “very constitutional measure” to allow those visiting the Family Planning Associates clinic in the West Loop to do so without the threat of harassment and work-limiting noise.
“To give you a since of what it’s like, you’ll see more than 100 protestors who are not just exercising their freedom of speech, but they are running and screaming at patients as they get out of their cars to discourage them from seeing their doctor,” he said prior to Wednesday’s vote. “They are blaring bullhorns in women’s faces with an armed guard in tow designed to intimidate and scare them, and they place amplifiers right up against the wall of the clinic, making it so loud that the building shakes and nurses can’t hear the patients.”
Conway said the scene is typical on any given Saturday near the clinic on the 600 block of West Washington Street, adding that his ordinance is no different than other quiet zones near the medical clinics in residential areas across the city.
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Conway said the protest become so chaotic that it is hard for police to enforce the 50-foot bubble rule Chicago already has on the books. He believes the law would win any legal challenges based on the first amendment.
The ordinance to ban the use of loud noise-making devices outside the clinic passed the council’s Public Safety Committee earlier this month.
The council on Wednesday was also set to discuss and vote on a number of topics, including the ShotSpotter contract, an effort to oust Chicago Transit Authority President Dorval Carter Jr., and the mayor’s picks on a police oversight board.
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