A pro-life advocate gained a victory this week in Tennessee when a Court of Appeals vacated a ruling that had denied her protection under the law.
In 2020, Erika Schanzenbach, represented by the Thomas More Society, filed a court order for protection against four abortion activists and escorts who continually stalked and harassed her as she prayed and counseled outside the Bristol Regional Women’s Center abortion facility. Multiple video evidence shows Denise Skeen, Alethea Skeen, Rowan Skeen, and Cheryl Hanzlik all harassing Schanzenbach, doing things like licking her arms, blowing in her ear, blaring police siren bullhorns in her face, stealing her leaflets, blocking her way with umbrellas, and shouting profanities and taunts in her face.
Despite this evidence, a Tennessee court ruled in August 2020 that it would not order protection against the abortion escorts, noting that Schanzenbach did not stop her pro-life advocacy, and therefore must not have been bothered by the harassment. The Thomas More Society appealed that decision, and an August 26 ruling from the Tennessee Court of Appeals vacated the ruling and found that the case should further proceed in court.
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“This is a good interim victory for Ms. Schanzenbach, a true hero on the front lines of peacefully and prayerfully ending abortion in this country,” Thomas More Society Counsel Michael McHale said in an email. “It is rare for an appellate court to disturb a lower court’s denial of a protection order, but here the Court of Appeals plainly saw that the trial court needed to better analyze the facts and law before it could deny protection to Ms. Schanzenbach. Her case involves the most egregious harassment we’ve seen of a pro-lifer anywhere in the country.”
The Thomas More Society notes that the Bristol Regional Women’s Center abortion facility has since closed down, as Tennessee law now protects most preborn children in the womb from abortion, but that it has relocated to a new facility just a mile away in Bristol, Virginia. Schanzenbach is continuing her pro-life advocacy at the new facility, and the Thomas More Society said it will continue to ensure that she is protected from harassment.
“Ms. Schanzenbach has been terrorized while exercising her freedom to peacefully express her opinion,” McHale said. “She has been stalked, threatened, and frightened, while attempting to share life-affirming alternatives with abortion-minded women – something that she is fully within her constitutional rights to do,” he added. “The appellate court has remanded Ms. Schanzenbach’s lawsuit back to the Chancery Court to get it right. We expect it to do so, by protecting her to the full extent of the law.”
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