Anti-abortion protesters outside West Loop clinic would be silenced under "quiet zone" rules

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

For the second time in six months, a City Council committee is moving to shield women from intimidation and abuse from bullhorn-bearing protesters on their way into a West Loop abortion clinic.

At the behest of Planned Parenthood and Ald. Bill Conway (34th), the Committee on Public Safety once again agreed to establish a “quiet zone” around the abortion clinic operated by Family Planning Associates at 659 W. Washington Blvd.

A slightly broader version was approved last fall but held in committee for "constitutional purposes" at the request of the city's Law Department.

Conway then agreed to shrink the quiet zone slightly and add specific language noting the adverse impacts of excessive noise on “surgical provider performance and patient outcomes” and stating the Chicago Police Department had received “at least ten complaints” about “loud, amplified noise consisting of bullhorns, megaphones and amplified music” last year.

Anti-abortion Ald. Nick Sposato (38th) once again voted “no,” condemning what he called an attempt to selectively “silence freedom of speech.” Sposato questioned how the ordinance would be enforced and why abortion clinics were being “singled out.”

“I myself have been at an anti-abortion rally, and I could tell you that people across the street that were counterprotesting were out of control. Amplified noise. Banging drums. Totally disruptive,” Sposato said.

Protesters have hounded alderpersons and held sometimes raucous demonstrations outside aldermanic offices, Sposato said, adding: “Whether we like it or not, we can’t pick and choose and say, 'You can’t go to abortion clinics, but you can go anyplace else.'"

Sposato stood his ground when a city attorney said the recent tweaks make the ordinance “as defensible as we can make it.”

“You’ve got the law degree. I’ve got the high school diploma. … Something ain’t right here. This is a dangerous precedent. … Whether you agree with me or not on abortion — and I know pretty much everyone around here doesn’t agree with me on it — this is a dangerous road we’re going down about freedom of speech,” said Sposato, who was joined in his dissent by 45th Ward Ald. Jim Gardiner.

Conway countered that women seeking refuge in a city that has become an oasis of reproductive freedom since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade have been forced to endure intimidation and abuse from bullhorn-bearing protesters on their way into the West Loop abortion clinic.

“I’ve personally observed protesters putting amplifiers up against the wall of the clinic, making it so loud inside that the clinicians can’t hear patients speak and building shakes,” Conway said. “Also protesters running at patients with amplifiers on their person in attempts to harass women and discourage them from accessing health care, in addition to a voluminous amount of noise complaints from surrounding residents.”

Diana Maracich, chief operating officer of Family Planning Associates Medical Group, said she "can't tell you how awful it is inside the clinic and dangerous for us because we can't hear" amid all the amplified noise outside.

"It comes through the windows," she said. "This goes on all day. It's so dangerous. ... It's growing every week. It's getting louder."