Abortion Protesters Won’t Be Punished for Chalking ‘Your Neighbor Is a Monster’ Outside Doctor’s Home
The group of abortion opponents who used sidewalk chalk to scrawl “Your neighbor is a monster,” “Stop killing American children,” and “Abortion is murder” outside of a Newport Beach doctor’s private home won’t face any charges from the police, despite the fact that several neighbors believe the protest should be considered vandalism.
At the beginning of July, dozens of anti-choice protesters affiliated with the group “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust” targeted the home of Dr. Richard Agnew, an OB-GYN who used to provide abortion care at Hoag Hospital. They carried signs with images of aborted fetuses and covered the sidewalk of Agnew’s neighborhood with chalk messages, a tactic they refer to as “chalk and awe.”
The protesters said they wanted to test the bounds of a city ordinance that bans picketing within 300 feet of private residences. Since the Orange County District Attorney’s Office doesn’t have enough evidence to pursue vandalism charges, the case is being dropped.