In September, Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker, unveiled a bill to address an issue she believes is too often ignored by New Yorkers. The bill aims to protect the patients and staff of local health clinics that perform abortions from harassment by anti-abortion activists who gather outside the clinics’ doors.
According to a City Council news release, the bill would allow third parties, including clinic employees, to file charges against protesters. It would also “ease the burden of proof” currently necessary to prosecute those charges. The bill has garnered broad support in the City Council, and it is expected to pass, possibly as early as this week.
According to the group, anti-abortion protesters were singling out a number of clinics in the boroughs outside Manhattan. Among them was Dr. Emily’s Women’s Health Center, a 4-year-old clinic at the edge of Hunts Point in the Bronx, which has the highest ratio of abortions to pregnancies of all counties in the state.
On a recent morning, the sidewalk outside the clinic was relatively quiet, but four young sidewalk counselors were handing fliers to passers-by. Among them was Brian Stong, a 21-year-old volunteer for Expectant Mother Care. That morning, Mr. Stong said, he had recorded what he described as his “16th official save.”
Inside, the clinic was bustling. Teenage girls filled the waiting room, some tending to noisy babies in strollers, others staring anxiously past the glass partition separating the waiting room from the nurses’ station.
