The key paragraphs come 215 pages into the behemoth Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill, and they're eye-glazing.
"Section 5 of the Corrections Oversight Improvement Omnibus Amendment Act of 2022 is repealed, and the provision of law amended by such section is restored as if such section had not been enacted into law…" zzz.
But behind two dense lines of text in one of the 12 must-pass House appropriations bills lies a contentious battle over abortion, free speech, social decency — and a peek into the pipeline from anti-abortion protesters to their powerful supporters in Congress.
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The story starts in August 2015, when the Two Rivers Public Charter School in northeast Washington D.C. was holding its parent-student-teacher conferences, according to court documents.
Next door, a new Planned Parenthood facility was in the works. Anti-abortion protesters, having been booted from the construction zone when Planned
Parenthood reportedly won an injunction, shuffled down the street, setting up camp in front of the school.
On the day of the conferences, the protesters displayed large posters of dismembered fetuses outside the school's entrance, according to court documents. And then they kept coming back.
In footage obtained by TPM, two of these recurring protests in the fall of 2015 show the protesters not just using the school's sidewalks for their proximity to the clinic-in-progress, but to direct their comments to the students, some of whom were as young as three or four.
"Ask your parents why they kill kids next door and how they can stop it," one cries as parents and teachers rush the kids from a line of cars into the school.
"Are you really okay with this being built next to your school?" another asks a student, trying to force a pamphlet into her hand as she scuttles by.
"Tell your parents to stop this bloodbath that's coming to your neighborhood," one says as a beleaguered looking staff member inserts her body between the students decamping from the car and the protester. "The little babies need your voice!"
Most of the protesters hold signs featuring fetuses. Protester Robert Weiler Jr. — who had earlier served five years in federal prison for a plot to blow up an abortion clinic in Maryland — holds a large yellow banner peppered with clipart sad baby faces reading "They kill babies nearby! Tell your parents to stop them."
In one of the videos dated November 2015, a gaggle of parents stands watching the protesters as one person films. One of them makes a comment about these tactics being deployed against the kids.
"There's a murder facility next door!" one of the protesters responds indignantly. "Are we really the weirdos?"
"Yes," someone offscreen mutters.
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