Victory
for the First Amendment
The First Amendment
scored a victory on March 28 -- albeit an exceptionally controversial
one.
Ruling for the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Planned Parenthood v. American
Coalition of Life Activists, a three-judge panel unanimously
reversed a lower court decision that fined abortion opponents $109
million. The abortion opponents had produced an internet web site
and wanted posters that attacked abortion doctors as "baby
butchers," charged them with "crimes against humanity"
and listed their names and addresses. Neither the posters nor the
web site contained any explicit threats against any individuals.
The lawsuit
had been brought by Planned Parenthood and four doctors who had
been named in the anti-abortion materials. At the original jury
trial, the lower court judge instructed the jury to consider prior
acts of violence by opponents of abortion. Three abortion doctors
were killed after their names had been publicized and others testified
of living in fear. The court instructed the jury that defendants
could only be liable if their statements were "true threats"
and therefore unprotected by the First Amendment.
The appeals
court ruling distinguished between violent acts actually committed
by abortion opponents acting alone or working with others and speech
which may have encouraged the acts of unrelated terrorists. The
latter was deemed to be protected speech under the First Amendment.
While an appeal
to the U.S. Supreme Court must be assumed, a recent Supreme Court
ruling that speech is protected unless threats are explicit with
the likelihood of causing "imminent lawless action" would
tend to indicate that the appeals court ruling will stand.
The Center for
Individual Freedom is absolutist when it comes to the First Amendment.
The right to free speech must be protected, because if it is lost,
then so, too, will be many of the other freedoms that are required
to retain the brilliantly woven tapestry of our constitutional system.
To defend free
speech is not to defend the instigation of violence ? direct or
remote. To defend free speech is not to defend any of the causes
which seek its protection. To defend free speech is not to defend
the specific speech that so often offends or hurts or causes social
turmoil. It is to defend the principle. That principle does not
and cannot distinguish the quality of speech, the morality of speech
or the ramifications of speech. It simply says it must be free.
The day after
the appeals court ruling for the abortion opponents, French police
arrested the suspect in the 1998 murder of a U.S. abortion doctor.
He will be tried under the law and, if found guilty, he could be
executed.
Both the appeals
court ruling for free speech and the application of the law to a
horrendous crime that may be related to that speech are appropriate.
Those who disagree should say so, in our Forum, We the People, if
they choose. The debate will underscore the principle that we are
so determined to preserve.
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