State announces lawsuit against 'extremist' anti-abortion group

State Attorney General Letitia James announced on June 8 that her office had filed suit against Red Rose Rescue, a right-wing anti-abortion organization, for blocking access to three Planned Parenthood locations in Nassau and Westchester counties, including the Planned Parenthood in Hempstead on July 7, 2022.

The lawsuit, announced just over two weeks before the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, claims that several members of the pro-life group, Christopher “Fidelis” Moscinski, Matthew Connolly, William Goodman, Laura Gies and John Hinshaw, have interfered with clinics by lying to clinicians to gain access to the facilities under the guise of being a patient and having an appointment.

Once inside, James’s office said, a Red Rose Rescue member posing as a patient will open a back door, allowing others inside, where they have occupied waiting rooms and refused to leave, barricaded entrances, threatened staff and clinicians, and physically blocked access to women’s health care services, all in an effort to stop clinics from operating.

“Red Rose Rescue has made it their mission to terrorize reproductive health care providers and the patients they serve,” James said. “Only we have the right to make decisions about our own bodies — not anti-choice legislators, not religious extremists and bigoted zealots, and not Red Rose rescue.” She continued, “We will not allow Red Rose Rescue to harass and harangue New Yorkers with their outrageous militant tactics. Make no mistake — abortion is health care, and as New York’s Attorney General, I will continue to protect and defend everyone’s legal right to safely access health care in this state.”

James also announced that she would seek to ban members of Red Rose Rescue from coming within 30 feet of any reproductive health care facility in the state. Under the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and the New York State Clinic Access Act, it is illegal to block access to reproductive health care clinics or harass their patients.

“It’s our job and responsibility to enforce the law,” James said, “and we plan on enforcing the law and to send a message that abortion is legal here in the state of New York and will remain such, and any individual who violates the law will have to deal with the office of the Attorney General and more importantly, Letitia James, who each and every day will support a woman’s right to choose.”

At the news conference announcing the suit, Dipal Shah, the chief external affairs officer for Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, thanked James for holding Red Rose Rescue accountable for actions that he said impact not only Planned Parenthood patients, but staff and volunteers as well.

“It’s unacceptable,” Shah said. “We see, on an almost daily basis, anti-abortion protesters outside our health centers … using harmful tactics to block patients’ access to our health centers — everything from verbally abusing them, forcing pamphlets in their face, and blocking them from entering.” He added, “These top tactics are not just disruptive, they’re psychologically destabilizing and they’re incredibly harmful.”

Catherine Lederer-Plaskett, president of Choice Matters and founder of Project CATCH (for the Center for Analysis and Tracking of Clinical Harassers), share her experiences with Red Rose Rescue.

“I would bet that everyone in this room has a day that changed their lives forever,” Lederer-Plaskett said. “I have mine. It was Nov. 27, 2021. That was the day All Women’s Medical in White Plains was invaded,” Red Rose Rescue managed to take over the entire facility, she said.

“If they had trespassed in a mall, they would have been evicted, removed, taken out immediately,” Lederer-Plaskett said, “but because it was only women’s health care, the police could be heard saying they didn’t want to get involved.”

She went on to explain that since Roe was overturned, pro-life extremists have felt emboldened, and that a study by the National Abortion Federation showed a 600 percent increase in incidents of stalking, a 450 percent increase in blockades, a 163 percent increase in hoax devices and suspicious packages, a 129 percent increase in invasions, and a 128 percent increase in assault and battery cases compared with just one year before the Supreme Court decision.

James said she hoped to continue being a leader in the fight for a woman’s right to choose, and that she wanted New York to be a place where anyone, from anywhere else in the U.S., can feel safe exercising their reproductive choices and freedoms, free of consequence. She also urges anyone seeking legal advice about abortion access to make use of the state’s new reproductive rights hotline, (212) 899-5567.