A protester outside the Choices Women's Health Clinic in Jamaica, Queens. Photo: New York Attorney General's Office. A federal judge found that a group of anti-abortion protesters who keep a regular presence outside the front door of a clinic in Queens did not run afoul of federal and state statutes intended to protect access to clinics. The case pertains to clashes that have raged every Saturday for the last six years between anti-abortion protesters who are a regular presence outside Choices Women's Medical Center in Jamaica, Queens, and escorts who walk with patients to the entrance and shield them from the protesters. In 2016, the New York Attorney General's Office launched an investigation into reports that the protesters were subjecting escorts, patients and clinic staff to threats, harassment and menacing behavior. Last year, then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York against a group of 13 protesters, alleging that the protesters hurled death threats at escorts, purposefully collided with escorts and physically blocked the pathway into the clinic with large signs that purport to bear photos of aborted fetuses, among other allegations. Taken together, the protesters' conduct, the AG's Office alleged, amounted to violations of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, as well as the law's state and local analogs, the New York Clinic Access Act and the New York City Access to Reproductive Health Care Facilities Act, respectively. The statutes, passed in the wake of violence inflicted upon abortion providers in the 1990s, prohibit physical obstruction of people attempting to enter clinics, damaging clinics, engaging in behavior that could put someone in fear of bodily harm and harassing someone within 15 feet of a clinic entryway. But in a ruling issued on July 20 to deny the AG's motion for a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon of the Eastern District of New York found that the AG's Office introduced evidence that protesters sometimes engaged with people who asked to be left alone. In an 103-page decision in which she ruled on the AG's specific factual allegations, the judge said the AG's Office failed to show that the defendants used unlawful physical force, that they had the intent to harass or annoy escorts, patients or clinic staff; and that from the evidence presented, it appeared that the interactions in front of Choices were “generally quite short” and that protesters appeared to heed repeated requests to be left alone. But Amon also issued a “word of caution” to the defendants that her ruling should not be taken as a sign to engage in more aggressive conduct, noting that some of the defendants' actions came close to crossing the line from conduct protected by the First Amendment to conduct that could be considered in violation of New York's clinic-access law. “Voluntarily discontinuing the practice of speaking to patients who have affirmatively asked to be left alone not only would evidence the defendants' good will, but also would lessen the likelihood of future litigation directed toward their protest activities,” the judge said. Martin Cannon, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society and the attorney for 10 of the 13 defendants, said the AG's allegations were “outlandish” and that the yearlong investigation by the office failed to turn up a “smoking gun” in terms of unlawful conduct by the protesters. “Our clients are just the loveliest, sweetest people you have ever met and they just want to go out there and hand a woman a pamphlet, hold up a sign or do a little preaching and, very importantly, offer assistance,” Cannon said. Assistant Attorneys General Nancy Trasande, Sandra Pullman, Lourdes Rosado, Jessica Attie, Justin Deabler, Carol Hunt and Anjana Samant appeared in the case. Amy Spitalnick, a spokeswoman for the AG's Office, said the evidence in the case showed a pattern of harassment by the protesters and that the office is reviewing its options. “This office won't hesitate to take on the tough fights necessary to protect women's fundamental rights—and that includes access to repro ductive health care without harassment or threats,” Spitalnick said. Amon's ruling comes at a time of heightened tension over a new U.S. Supreme Court appointment that may mean further erosion of abortion rights. Amon's ruling also drew criticism from elected officials in New York City and from members of the abortion rights community, some of whom are calling on the AG's Office to appeal the ruling. “The court's decision denying our patients and staff protection from the harassment and intimidation they currently experience on a weekly basis is inexplicable, and its utter disregard of their testimony is a shocking repudiation of their lived experiences,” said Merle Hoffman, founder and president of Choices, in a news release. “Only by ignoring the unbearable atmosphere of hate and chaos deliberately created by these anti-choice zealots could the court parse their conduct to avoid finding violations of federal, state, and city law.”