Law protects graphic protest outside abortion clinic

01:56 AM EDT on Friday, April 15, 2005

BY JENNIFER LEVITZ
Journal Staff Writer

CRANSTON -- Joseph Manning agreed to take down the baby outfits he had hung in the trees.

They were part of an antiabortion display he puts up three days a week outside the Women's Medical Center on Broad Street.

"That said the whole thing," he said. "You know what I'm saying? The baby suits waving in the trees."

But Manning, 74, won't remove his signs, as many as 11 at a time, some that depict bloody, dismembered fetuses. The clinic, which provides medical services, including abortions, is at the corner of Betsey Williams Drive, a street with enough children to hold its own Halloween parade.

Bobby Raposa sees the display from behind his picket fence. "I don't like it at all," he said, motioning toward his daughter, who was playing in the yard. "She shouldn't have to learn this at age five, but I have to explain this because these people have pictures of dead babies on the street."

Journal photo / Mary Murphy

Abortion protester Joseph Manning, of Narragansett, talks to a young woman as she walks from a parking lot to the Women's Medical Center of Rhode Island on Broad Street, in Cranston, on Wednesday. The clinic performs abortions.

The Cranston police, who lost a lawsuit after seizing Manning's signs three years ago, have taken another approach, citing him six times in the past few months under the city's sign ordinance. One case came after a driver said he got into an accident because he was distracted by a poster showing what appears to be a huge aborted fetus. Manning is fighting the citations.

A priest from St. Paul Catholic Church down the street, which Manning attended growing up, asked Manning to remove the signs when children are walking to school, according to police reports. Mayor Stephen P. Laffey met with Manning and his lawyer, seeking a compromise.

Manning said he prayed on all those requests. His answer came to him one day recently when a woman saw one of his signs attached to his green pickup, parked across from the medical center.

"The girl in the passenger seat broke down crying," he said. The car, he said, "took off and never came back. I said, no, these signs tell the whole story."

THE WOMEN'S MEDICAL CENTER is in a brick building between the Blooming Mad florist shop and Betsey Williams Drive, named for the great-great-great grandaughter of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams.

"It's a time-warp street, it's very kind of corny on our street," said Jessica Rosner, 47, an artist who lives there with her husband and 9-year-old son.

Manning became a protester after a long spiritual journey that began when he "came to the Lord" in 1978.

His first demonstration was picketing the movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, where he saw people using prayer and signs in a way he felt brought results.

A retired railroad worker, he was arrested in 1990 with 27 others who blocked the entrance to Planned Parenthood in Providence's Jewelry District. He became a regular a few years ago outside the Cranston clinic, one of two in the state where abortions are performed. (The medical center did not return calls for comment.)

In September 2002, the Cranston police, getting complaints, seized the graphic signs belonging to him and another protester. The police said they offended the community's standards of decency.

Manning sued, represented by both the American Catholic Lawyers Association, and the Thomas More Law Center. In May 2003, the U.S. District Court ordered Cranston to pay Manning $2,500.

"The city can't squelch speech because they don't like it," said Edward L. White III, a lawyer from Thomas More. "It can't be based on content. It has to be things that apply to everything. They can't say this sign is wrong, but a picture of a sunflower is OK."

The Michigan-based Thomas More organization defends Christians and "time-honored family values," according to its Web site. White said there's nothing new about using shocking graphic visuals to make a point.

Animal-rights activists, he pointed out, display signs of mutilated lab rabbits.

The use of graphic billboards and signs has become a popular strategy of antiabortion protesters, he said. One of his clients is appealing a Hawaii court decision that banned him from flying a plane with streamers depicting aborted fetuses over popular beaches.

"The whole purpose of debate is to get a subject out there, stir it up and make it robust," White said. "These photos are great for that."

Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, in Washington, D.C., a group that represents abortion providers, said the graphic displays turn off people who might otherwise be sympathetic, but who don't want to explain to their children about abortion as they drive down the street.

FOR RESIDENTS on Betsey Williams Drive, the 2003 court ruling meant Manning's signs were there to stay.

On a recent afternoon, Daniel Carr was out in his yard, giving a friend's dog a bath.

"I've had words with them," said Carr, who's 42, and works in construction. "Babies with an arm over there, head over here, it's terrible."

Gene Vinni, a retired Pentecostal pastor, was washing his car at his brick ranch next door. Asked about the protesters, he simply said: "I don't believe in abortion. I feel that every child has a right to life and if people don't want them, have them adopted."

Elizabeth and Peter McStay were working in the yard in front of their house, white with green shutters. Peter McStay said, "it's a tough thing. It's a free country, but you don't have the right to infringe upon my way of life."

"If they want to have a prayer circle, march, protest, rosary, express their views, do it without the pictures and signs," he said. "It's really gotten out of hand."

A little girl rode up on her bike, equipped with training wheels and glittery streamers hanging from the handlebars. Her mother, Michele Curry, a 41-year-old homemaker, said her children, ages 4 and 6, were asking questions when they rode by the protesters.

"I just say, 'they don't agree with what happens in that clinic.' I think it's horrible. They have a right to their opinions, but the pictures are too graphic."

Darlene Ciolfi-Donley, 44, said she's had a few tiffs with neighbors, most notably over a homeowner's decision to paint his house "swimming pool blue." But nothing like this. She pleaded with the protesters, and told them that "if they cared anything about life," they'd care about the children on the street.

On the other hand, Ree Coffey, a retiree who has statuettes of Mary and the infant Jesus by her petunias, has Manning over for coffee. "The pictures aren't pretty but they are real," she said.

COL. STEPHEN McGRATH said the police have received numerous complaints over the past few months. "We have to explain we can't address the content," the police chief said.

Susan Iannitelli, Manning's lawyer, said the police are continually citing him under the sign ordinance. "In our opinion, that's just a ruse to attack his right to express his constitutionally protected message," she said.

Iannitelli said Manning has made some concessions, such as adjusting the height of his signs, so he's not obstructing traffic.

"The city is under pressure from certain people, from neighbors, about the graphic nature of his message, but that's the message that he has a right to display," said Iannitelli.

Early Wednesday morning, Manning was outside the clinic again, attempting to hand out pamphlets titled "God's Simple Sign of Salvation." His display of 11 signs included one of a mutilated baby in the clutch of forceps.

A Cranston school bus drove by. Told of the neighbor's concerns that children were seeing his signs, he motioned toward the clinic and said: "I understand. I relate. But there are children being killed in here. If you go on a scale of things, one is much worse."

A few minutes later, Manning jogged the length of the clinic, toward Betsey Williams Drive. One of his signs had fallen and was being soaked by the sprinklers on the clinic's lawn.

He propped it upright.