Abortion Foes Can’t Block Clinics, Court Rules : Law: State appeals panel says, however, that protesters cannot be barred from shouting words like murderers and killers at physicians and clients.

In a key test of abortion rights, a state Court of Appeal ruled here Friday that judges can order protesters kept away from an abortion clinic but cannot bar them from shouting murderers , killers and other epithets at physicians and clients.

The panel held 3 to 0 that the state constitutional right to privacy allows courts to protect women seeking abortions by excluding abortion foes from a clinic parking lot or a public sidewalk directly in front of the facility.

The ruling was the first by a California appellate court on the highly charged issue since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year allowing restrictions on abortion as long as they cause no “undue burden.”

The appellate court Friday said it was “questionable” whether that federal high court ruling could support a court order banning protesters from the immediate premises.

But the panel said the state constitutional right to privacy--applied to abortion by the state high court in 1981--provided sufficient basis for a court to keep protesters away from face-to-face confrontations with women seeking abortions.

If, as appears likely, Friday’s ruling is appealed to the state Supreme Court, the case could present the high court with an opportunity for its first major ruling on abortion since conservatives gained control after the 1986 election defeat of Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and two other liberals.

Another key test, a challenge to a state law requiring minors to obtain consent from a parent or judge for an abortion, is pending in the state Court of Appeal but has not yet been set for argument.

Geoffrey L. Robinson of Walnut Creek, an attorney for the Planned Parenthood clinic targeted for protests in the case, hailed Friday’s ruling as a strong reaffirmation of the right to abortion.

“This decision says that even after the (U.S. Supreme Court ruling), we are compelled by our state Constitution to strike down restrictions on the right of procreation,” said Robinson. “This applies not only to anti-abortion protests, but any governmental interference with access to abortion.”

Janet B. Carroll, legislative director of the California Pro-Life Council, said she hoped the state high court would use the case to overturn the 1981 ruling and preclude the state constitutional right to privacy from being applied to abortion. “The privacy right was intended to protect us from onerous governmental collection of data,” she said. “It was never intended to apply to abortion.”

Carroll welcomed the appellate court’s invalidation of restrictions on protesters’ free speech. “These kind of restrictions are not going to be upheld,” she said. “We have a right to talk to people at these clinics.”

In its ruling, the appellate panel upheld provisions of an injunction issued in 1990 by a Solano County Superior Court requiring protesters to stay across the street from a family planning clinic in Vallejo.

But the panel held that the right to free political speech was violated by a section of the order that restricted what protesters can say to doctors and patients in the presence of children under 12. Such words as murdering , killers and murdered were banned.

“Abortion may be the political issue of the last 20 years,” Appellate Justice Clinton W. White wrote for the court. “Further, the words murder , kill and their derivatives play an essential role in the debate concerning abortion.”

The ruling Friday also follows a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last month barring the use of federal post-Civil War civil rights laws against anti-abortion protesters who block clinics.

That federal high court holding did not preclude state courts from issuing injunctions against protesters who block clinic entrances. Also, a new state law taking effect this year makes it a crime to prevent anyone from entering a health care facility, church or school.