Pro-life murderer James Kopp says conviction should be tossed because abortion right 'does not exist'

James Charles Kopp, a radical anti-abortion activist who in 1998 murdered a western New York abortion provider, contends that his federal convictions should be dismissed because of the year-old Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe versus Wade.

In court papers filed this month, Kopp claims that the 2002 Supreme Court ruling proves that "the constitutional right to an abortion does not exist and never did."

He also alleges that he was denied in federal court the right to justify his crimes with a defense based on "the humanity of womb children."

In 1998, Kopp fatally shot Barnett Slepian, a physician and abortion provider, in Slepian's Amherst, Erie County home.

Kopp, 68, is serving a life sentence in federal prison. He has unsuccessfully sought appeals before, but his latest filing shows he is more emboldened by the Supreme Court ruling, which returned abortion-related policies to individual states.

As well as federal charges, Kopp was sentenced to 25 years to life for a state charge of second-degree murder. His appeals for the crime were denied. Even if he were to succeed with a federal appeal, he would still be imprisoned on the state charges.

In federal court, Kopp was found guilty of multiple crimes, including the violation of federal laws that provide access to legal abortions under what is known as the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances, or FACE.

"FACE was intended to protect a 'right' to abortion that thus never existed, and, as such, the fate of FACE attaches to and follows perfectly the fate of Roe," Kopp wrote in the court papers. "Since Roe is now overturned FACE also is now gone and never existed."

FACE, however, still exists and is enforced.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: James Kopp says conviction should be tossed