By Hank Russell
An anti-abortion group lost its case against the state of New York after a district judge ruled that three members of the organization willfully blocked access to reproductive healthcare and abortion services in violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Two of the incidents happened on Long Island.
As previously reported in Long Island Life & Politics, Attorney General Letitia James recently filed a contempt order against Red Rose Rescue (RRR) for willfully defying a court order that prohibited the group and its members from blocking access to women’s healthcare clinics. In addition, she sought sanctions of at least $500 per violation.
“This is a monumental victory for the rule of law, for reproductive freedom, and for every patient who has been harassed, intimidated, or blocked from accessing the health care they need,” James said. “The court has affirmed that Red Rose Rescue and its members flagrantly violated the law by invading clinics, obstructing clinic entrances, and disrupting essential medical services. Their actions were not peaceful protest but unlawful obstruction, and today’s ruling makes it clear that such conduct will not be tolerated in New York.”
But Marion Miller, director of the Michigan-based Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, called the lawsuit “founded on false accusations, outright lies and exaggerations as to exactly what the prolifers did in their defense of unborn children about to be brutally put to death.” She emphasized that the rescuers “do not obstruct anyone or anything,” but rather “simply walk into the places where innocent persons are about to be killed and quietly, peacefully talk to the women, offering them encouragement and practical resources and yes red roses as a sign of life and peace.”
According to court documents, on April 24, 2021, around 8 a.m., Christopher Moscinski, Laura Gies, and John Hinshaw conducted a RRR at All Women’s Care in Manhasset. All Women’s Care, which provides abortion care as well as other reproductive health care, only allows patients with appointments to enter the clinic. During the spring of 2021, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the clinic did not permit relatives or companions to occupy patients inside.
Despite these restrictions, Moscinski, Gies, and Hinshaw gained entry into All Women’s Care with the assistance of a female member of Red Rose who had made an appointment at the clinic. Moscinski, an ordained Catholic priest, entered the clinic in street clothes and carried a duffel bag containing his “monk robe,” as he believed he would be denied access to the clinic if he were seen wearing it. Once inside, Moscinski donned the robe over his street clothes.
Moscinski, Gies, and Hinshaw occupied the patient waiting room, carrying red roses and refusing to leave despite repeated requests from clinic staff and, eventually, from law enforcement. At one point, Gies knelt down in one of the interior doorways between the waiting room and a hallway, then crawled into the clinic hallway, where she sat on the floor, shouting at clinic staff. Upon being told by law enforcement they would be arrested, Moscinski and Hinshaw dropped to the floor; Gies remained kneeling where she was on the floor in the hallway. Police had to use special emergency services equipment — i.e., a “stair-chair” — to lift Moscinski, Gies, and Hinshaw off the floor and carry them out of the clinic.
During this process, Gies lay on the floor, shouting “I am not leaving.” According to court documents, their conduct disrupted the provision of reproductive health services and diverted the execution of clinic staff’s duties for approximately two hours. During the RRR, clinic staff had patients “go ahead on outside to their cars,” letting them know that staff “would call them if [they] could.”
Gies later testified at trial that her “goal” was to stay in the clinic as long as possible “to help stop abortion for the day,” while Moscinski testified that he was only “willing to walk out the [clinic] door if all the other staff members who were practicing the butchering of children through abortion would leave.” Similarly, Hinshaw testified that he would not leave unless law enforcement would “do their job protecting innocent human life” and stop the clinic from performing abortions. All three were later convicted of trespassing and second-degree obstructing governmental administration in connection with the Manhasset RRR.
On July 7, 2022, Moscinski barricaded the entrance to a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Hempstead, which provides abortion care and other reproductive health services. He locked the front gates of the clinic shut with six industrial locks and chains, which blocked the driveway into the parking lot as well as the pedestrian gates, rendering the building and parking lot completely inaccessible to both staff and patients.
When police arrived, they were unable to remove the locks with bolt cutters and had to call the fire department to use “forcible entry saws” to cut and remove the locks. Multiple vehicles were waiting to enter the lot when the gates were opened, but Moscinski walked in front of the first vehicle and blocked its path.
A police officer instructed Moscinski to move out of the way; when he refused, the officer tried to physically remove him, at which point Moscinski went limp, fell to the ground, and lay in the driveway in front of the vehicles. Police officers ultimately had to pick Moscinski up off the ground and carry his body to the police car. In the police car, Moscinski stated, “At least I slowed them down some — I slowed them down a little bit today.” Moscinski was tried and found guilty of violating FACE and was sentenced to the statutory maximum of six months. He has since admitted that his “main motivation” for his conduct “was to keep that Planned Parenthood closed for as long as possible.”
In December 2023, OAG obtained a preliminary injunction that prohibited the group from coming within 15 feet of any reproductive healthcare facility in 13 downstate New York counties, as also reported by LILP. The contempt order was filed on August 27, 2024 when Red Rose member Bernadette Patel was allegedly within the 15-foot buffer at two Planned Parenthood clinics in New York City after the injunction was obtained.
On March 21, 2025, a judge ruled in favor of James. “The FACE Act is not only neutral as between interference by supporters and opponents of abortion, but neutral on the question of whether a perpetrator’s moral position on reproductive healthcare was even part of his motivation at all,” U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas wrote in his opinion. “All that matters is that the defendant by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person because that person is or has been . . . obtaining or providing reproductive health services—for any reason, including entirely personal, apolitical ones.”
“Our attorneys are very confident that justice and truth will prevail on appeal,” Miller said. “We are ready for the next legal battle.”