Ventura Backs Safeguards at Family Planning Clinics

Rejecting arguments by abortion opponents and three of its elected members, the Ventura City Council has voted to join a Santa Barbara legal fight to reinstate protections to women entering family planning clinics.

The 4-3 decision, which came Monday just before midnight, directs the Ventura city attorney to file a brief in support of the Santa Barbara City Council’s appeal of a federal court ruling declaring a law it passed two years ago unconstitutional.

Filing the brief with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals does not make Ventura a party to the lawsuit. It merely places the city on record as supporting Santa Barbara’s challenge to the earlier court ruling.

The Ventura council could have adopted a so-called “bubble ordinance” of its own. But the panel opted to wait until the 9th Circuit rules on the Santa Barbara law that was declared unconstitutional three months ago by a federal judge in Los Angeles.

Proponents of the laws, called bubble ordinances because they establish eight-foot safety zones around patients, urged the Ventura council to support the Santa Barbara case.

Opponents, many carrying six-foot bamboo poles they called “leper wands” to distribute anti-abortion literature to women entering family planning centers, called the laws unnecessary and unconstitutional.

“There is no violence outside the clinics,” said Linda Vahl of Oxnard, who said she has protested at family planning clinics for years. “The only violence is inside the clinics where the babies are being killed.”

But Mayor Tom Buford joined Councilmen Gregory L. Carson, Steve Bennett and Gary Tuttle in agreeing to file a brief with the federal appeals court, urging reinstatement of the Santa Barbara law.

Buford, who broke a 3-3 tie with a soft but firm “yes” after a moment’s delay, offered no explanation for his vote.

Council members Rosa Lee Measures, Jack Tingstrom and Jim Monahan opposed joining the Santa Barbara appeal.

“I don’t see why we’re spending any staff time on this at all,” said Tingstrom, who cast the lone vote against the ordinance when it was considered in 1993.

“I was alone then and I’ll probably be alone this time,” he said. “But this is an issue of taking away someone’s rights.”

The City Council two years ago delayed adopting a bubble ordinance because of questions over the legality of such laws.

But Ventura City Atty. Peter D. Bulens said that his draft law is constitutional based on his interpretation of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Several abortion-rights speakers agreed, urging the council to support the Santa Barbara appeal and shelter women from what they said were threats and harassment inflicted on patients by abortion opponents.

“A protester has a right to protest under the Constitution, but I do not see where a protester has the right to infringe,” said Ventura activist Roma Armbrust.

The proposed law is “extremely fair and unbiased,” she said. “You’re taking a position where everyone’s rights are being considered.”

To make her counterpoint, Clara Davis of Camarillo showed council members a large color poster of an aborted fetus cradled in a surgeon’s palm.

“I know that’s a very graphic picture, but you people need to see it,” she said. “That’s what’s going on inside these clinics.”

The Santa Barbara law was “so restrictive that we could not even approach these women” to offer alternatives to abortion, Davis said.

In an interview prior to Monday’s vote, Councilman Monahan said he would support filing the brief with the federal appeals court. But he changed his mind after listening to Tingstrom and Measures.

“We don’t need to spend any money on it just now,” Monahan said Tuesday. “Whatever happens in Santa Barbara is going to happen, then we can take it up for consideration at that time.”

A ruling by the 9th Circuit on the Santa Barbara appeal is expected this summer.