In a speech before the National Press Club Tuesday, Iowa Governor and potential Democratic presidential candidate Tom Vilsack sid he would favor tighter restrictions on abortion similar to those recently passed in South Dakota.

The Des Moines Register has more:

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The U.S. Supreme Court this in Schiedler vs. National Organization for Women, et al, week ruled that abortion clinics cannot use federal laws against racketerring and extortion to stop demonstrations.
The New York Times has more:

The opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer turned on two words. The justices ruled that clinics could not use the decades-old Hobbs Act, which outlaws the obstruction of commerce by “robbery or extortion,” to stymie protesters.

“Physical violence unrelated to robbery or extortion falls outside the Hobbs Act’s scope,” Justice Breyer wrote. To try to use the act as the National Organization for Women and other abortion-rights advocates have done “broadens the Hobbs Act’s scope well beyond what case law has assumed,” he wrote.

Moreover, the ruling noted, Congress specifically addressed the needs of abortion clinics and their patients in 1994, when it passed legislation that makes it a federal crime to attack or blockade abortion clinics, their operators or their patrons. By its actions in 1994, Congress suggested that the much older Hobbs act did not address anti-abortion protests, Justice Breyer wrote.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. did not take part in today’s ruling. He took his seat on the court after the case, Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, No. 04-1244, was argued last Nov. 30.

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The Wisconsin-based Women’s Medical Fund is calling for a boycott of South Dakota tourism if Governor Mike Rounds signs a bill banning most abortions.

KELO-TV has more:

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Attorney General Mike Cox filed a brief Monday backing his appeal of a ruling that declared a Michigan abortion law unconstitutional.

MILive has more:

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