Conviction of 3 Anti-Abortion Activists Upheld

A state appeal court on Friday refused to overturn the conviction of three anti-abortion activists for blocking a Ventura family planning clinic.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal in Ventura said in a strongly worded ruling that the protesters cannot legally contend that they acted out of necessity when they blocked the Telegraph Road entrance to the Family Planning Clinic on July 6, 1989.

The protesters have argued “that they may commit crimes with impunity because of the moral correctness of their convictions about abortion,” the ruling said. “We disagree. When a person commits a criminal offense, he or she must suffer the penal consequences.”

The court said the protesters “may not criminally interfere with the exercise of constitutional rights by others, and then escape punishment for their criminal conduct by asserting the defense of necessity.”

“Those who choose to break the law under such circumstances because of firmly held beliefs must be prepared to suffer the consequences,” the court said.

At their trial later that year, the protesters argued that blocking the clinic entrance was necessary to prevent what they considered the “greater evil” of abortion.

Catherine Jean Garziano, Loren Gregory Broyles and Raymundo Rodriguez Jr. were convicted in Ventura County Municipal Court in September, 1989, of obstructing a public passage and refusing to disperse. That conviction was upheld by an appeals panel of the county Superior Court in December.

Friday, the appellate court said “a pregnant woman’s decision to exercise her right under the constitutions of the United States and of the state of California to terminate a pregnancy is not and cannot be held to be a ‘significant evil.’ ”

The court said the protesters’ appeal was based on “their position of the right to assert the defense of necessity. They have no such right.” Michael D. Schwartz, a Ventura County deputy district attorney, said the appellate ruling is the first in the state on the use of the necessity defense in abortion cases. The opinion will be published in California law books and will serve as a legal precedent in similar cases in the state, he said.

“I have no question as to the sincerity of the protesters’ feelings against abortion,” Schwartz said. He added, however, that “if people can choose which laws they disagree with and break the law to protest those laws, you would have a state of anarchy.”

Robert D. Silver, the protesters’ attorney, said Friday he had not told his clients about the ruling. He said, however, that he believes they will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.

Silver had argued in court that his clients were trying to prevent all abortions--not just those performed on women less than 20 weeks’ pregnant, which are allowed by the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade.

California law allows abortions up to 24 weeks if the fetus is unable to survive outside the womb.

Silver said Friday that he was surprised by the court’s remarks on the ruling.

“It appears that the court may be saying that, in California, a woman has a right to kill her unborn child at any time,” Silver said. “That shocks my conscience, and I don’t believe that’s really the law in California. . . . The discussion left out any consideration of the right of the state to protect the lives of unborn children.”