Mouths sued shut: making racketeers out of protesters.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob

Tendentious terminology has always been a problem in the abortion debate. People who support restrictions, for example, call themselves "prolife," implying that their opponents are "pro-death." Now a federal jury in Chicago has resolved this semantic difficulty. The correct term for anti-abortion activists, it turns out, is racketeers - or, if you prefer, extortionists.

That was the upshot of a class action lawsuit filed 12 years ago by two abortion clinics and the National Organization for Women. NOW argued that Joseph Scheidler of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League and three other prominent activists had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) by encouraging anti-abortion protests.

Under RICO, Scheidler et al. are liable for triple damages, and abortion clinics around the country are expected to demand compensation (mostly for extra security costs). If the verdict is upheld and other groups copy NOW's strategy, many forms of political activism could become prohibitively expensive.

Since RICO was intended to fight organized crime, applying it to anti-abortion activists required some creative definitions. According to my dictionary, extort means "to wrest or wring (money, information, etc.) from a person by violence, intimidation, or abuse of authority." Yet NOW maintained that anti-abortion protesters were guilty of extortion, a "predicate act" under RICO, when they blocked the entrances of clinics. Exactly what they wrested is a little hazy.

Similarly, my dictionary defines racket as "an organized illegal activity, such as bootlegging or the extortion of money from legitimate business people by threat or violence." On the face of it, anti-abortion protests don't fit into this category very well.

But Susan Hill, who owns the two clinics that sued Scheidler and his colleagues, explained that appearances can be deceiving: "In our case, they weren't coming for the bag of money - but to force us to close down by blockades or threats. For us, working in the clinics, it was racketeering." In 1994 that argument got a boost from the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled that an "enterprise" can be subject to RICO even if it's not aimed at making money. But in a concurring opinion, Justice David Sourer said courts should "bear in mind the First Amendment interests that could be at stake," since "RICO actions could deter protected advocacy."

In fact, RICO actions against political groups are intended to...