{"id":4513,"date":"2011-07-20T12:35:22","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T16:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=4513"},"modified":"2011-07-20T12:53:03","modified_gmt":"2011-07-20T16:53:03","slug":"feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines","title":{"rendered":"Feds hit elderly anti-abortion D.C. protester with $25,000 in fines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A pro-life activist who has engaged in sidewalk counseling for 14 years has been taken to court by the federal Department of Justice. The complaint to the court submitted by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice alleges that the elderly Richard Retta non-violently obstructed a woman from entering Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, an abortion facility.<\/p>\n<p>The shocked veteran pro-life activist told LifeSiteNews on Tuesday\u00a0he was unaware that the lawsuit had been filed against him, and that he had not been informed by the Department of Justice. He is seeking legal counsel before making a public statement.<\/p>\n<p>Department of Justice is demanding that Retta be fined $10,000, that a permanent 20 foot bubble zone be placed around the clinic barring pro-lifers, and that Retta pay an additional fine of $15,000 in equal parts to the three \u2018victims\u2019 of his actions, which the DoJ argues were contrary to the Freedom of Access to Clinic Act (FACE).<\/p>\n<iframe title=\"Dick Retta Sidewalk Counselor - Six people saved today!\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YOptXN8UXfc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>\u00a0The \u00a0video was made by Peter Shinn\u2019s Pro-Life Unity, in which Retta can be seen in action on a day where the lives of six unborn children were saved. In the video Retta can be seen walking with a woman leaving the clinic, offering what is described as post-abortion help.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Shinn, the President of Pro-Life Unity and Cherish Life Ministries, told LifeSiteNews, \u201cI\u2019ve been out to the Planned Parenthood with Dick a number of times and Dick has always exhibited compassion for the women going in to have abortions and asking them to turn away from what he knows will kill their child and cause emotional harm to them afterwards.\u00a0 He is in no way aggressive nor does he block women from entering.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A pro-life activist who has engaged in sidewalk counseling for 14 years has been taken to court by the federal Department of Justice. The complaint to the court submitted by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice alleges that the elderly Richard Retta non-violently obstructed a woman from entering Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[963],"tags":[291],"class_list":["post-4513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-2","tag-abortion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Feds hit elderly anti-abortion D.C. protester with $25,000 in fines<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Feds hit elderly anti-abortion D.C. protester with $25,000 in fines\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A pro-life activist who has engaged in sidewalk counseling for 14 years has been taken to court by the federal Department of Justice. The complaint to the court submitted by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice alleges that the elderly Richard Retta non-violently obstructed a woman from entering Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-20T16:35:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-20T16:53:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Feds hit elderly anti-abortion D.C. protester with $25,000 in fines","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Feds hit elderly anti-abortion D.C. protester with $25,000 in fines","og_description":"A pro-life activist who has engaged in sidewalk counseling for 14 years has been taken to court by the federal Department of Justice. The complaint to the court submitted by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice alleges that the elderly Richard Retta non-violently obstructed a woman from entering Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-07-20T16:35:22+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-07-20T16:53:03+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines","name":"Feds hit elderly anti-abortion D.C. protester with $25,000 in fines","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-07-20T16:35:22+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-20T16:53:03+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/07\/feds-hit-elderly-anti-abortion-d-c-protester-with-25000-in-fines#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Feds hit elderly anti-abortion D.C. protester with $25,000 in fines"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4513"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4516,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513\/revisions\/4516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}