Critics Say 'Abortioncams' Invade Privacy

Aug. 16 -- "Watch People Going in and out of Baby Butcher Shops in Your City or Town," an anti-abortion rights Web site urges.

With a click of the mouse, users can view pictures and video of people entering or leaving abortion clinics — including patients who undergo abortions and doctors who perform them.

Abortion rights activists say it's an invasion of privacy that encourages violence against those captured on camera.

"It is aimed at intimidating women and health-care professionals and is escalating tensions outside abortion clinics," says Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation.

Just the Facts?

But the creator of Abortioncams.com — Neal Horsley, who founded The Christian Gallery News Service, an anti-abortion rights group based in Carrollton, Ga. — says he is only exercising his constitutional rights as a "journalist."

"If they make it illegal for me to report the abortion story then the idea of a free press will have been completely overturned by judicial tyranny," he insists. "All I'm doing is reporting the news."

Horsley has enlisted anti-abortion rights demonstrators, including his 20-year-old daughter Kathy, to serve as Christian Gallery "reporters" and shoot anyone walking in or out of abortion clinics with still or video cameras.

"What they're doing is evil — These people … are ripping babies limb from limb," he says. "Anybody who goes within 5 miles of an abortion clinic has to understand that they're entering into a story of momentous social concern."

Saporta says her organization's lawyers are researching possible legal lines of attack, including whether the Web site's activities constitute an invasion of privacy.

"It certainly violates a patient's confidentiality," she says. "We're looking to see if they in fact cross First Amendment lines into areas that would be illegal."

From the Creator of 'The Nuremberg Files' …

Horsley also posts "The Nuremberg Files" on his Web site — a frequently updated list of the names and home-states of abortion providers, abortion-rights activists, politicians who support abortion rights, women who have received abortions and various judges and police officers. The title is a reference to the post World War II trials of alleged Nazi war criminals.