MINNEAPOLIS — A Christian group known for picketing Planned Parenthood and taking out anti-abortion rights billboards is suing the city of Minneapolis over a new law that prohibits people from blocking the entrances and driveways of abortion clinics.
"The Minneapolis ordinance … was a deliberate attempt to stifle Pro-Life Action Ministries' sidewalk outreach outside of Planned Parenthood," said lawyer Erick Kaardal of the Thomas More Society, a conservative Chicago law firm. "Minneapolis City Councilmember Lisa Goodman ... made it publicly known that the enactment of Chapter 405 was a 'creative decision' while she awaits a codifying of abortion rights in Minnesota and nationwide, stating, 'Never in my 25 years of being here have I ever gotten to do something as meaningful in the reproductive rights movement.'"
Goodman, who championed the Minneapolis ordinance, recently lost her mother and was not available to respond Wednesday.
The ordinance, which went into effect in November, states no one may physically disrupt anyone else's access to a reproductive facility by occupying its entrance or driveway. An exception is allowed for people crossing the driveway from one side to the other without slowing down or stopping.
To support the ordinance, Planned Parenthood provided security footage of anti-abortion rights activists intercepting cars attempting to turn into its Lagoon Avenue clinic.
Pro-Life Action Ministries has conducted sit-ins, protests and "sidewalk ministry" in which volunteers hand anti-abortion literature to patients trying to enter Planned Parenthood clinics since the 1980s. The group pointed out that sidewalks are public property. Pro-Life Action Ministries claims that the ordinance preventing obstruction of abortion clinics infringes on its freedom of speech and religion.
The group conducts large protests of the Vandalia Street Planned Parenthood in St. Paul every year. According to the complaint, it wants to hold similar picketing events at Planned Parenthood on Lagoon Avenue in Minneapolis.
It's unclear whether any Pro-Life Action Ministries have been cited under the new Minneapolis ordinance.
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