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Posted on 04/19/2006 2:51:43 PM PDT by topher
Abortuary ‘Buffer Zone’ Violates Free Speech Law: Federal Judge
By Terry Vanderheyden
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, April 19, 2006
(LifeSiteNews.com) – A federal judge in Florida has ruled that a 20-foot buffer zone imposed by a lower court against pro-life abortion protesters violates their free speech rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks ruled April 11 that the buffer-zone ordinance, passed in October, is too restrictive. “Freedom of speech is rarely an issue when everyone agrees,” Middlebrooks stated in his written decision, as reported by the Associated Press. “Perhaps more than at any other place and any other time, in cases such as this, speech guaranteed by the First Amendment must be protected.”
Three women who frequently protest outside the Presidential Women’s Center abortuary challenged the ordinance in federal court. Their attorney, Michael DePrimo, emphasized that “The ordinance was designed to suppress the speech of pro-life demonstrations.”
"Abortuary"? Why not "Aborto's House of Fetus Murder"?
Maybe because Abortuary rhymes with mortuary?
Makes sense. I'd just come right out and call it a human slaughterhouse.
How about "abattoir".
That works too.
He did rule against the Republicans in the hand count in Dade County in the hanging chad election of 2000.
Maybe he feels that Free Speech is really Free Speech, and he does not side with the ACLU/Planned Parenthood crowd (special rules for special people)...
If the intended-for-burial was still alive at his funeral, yes, i'd be for protesting!
Including "Pastor" Phelps.
And also including going in people's faces in the street while they are going about their legal business.
Sorry that the response is long winded...
As for funerals, they are protected by Freedom of Religion, and if one interferes with a religious activity, that can be prosecuted (and things such as disturbing a funeral should be protected).
As for Recruiting Centers, if there is a public sidewalk in front of it, then people are allowed to voice their opinions. But what they do should not interfere with what is going on inside of the Recruiting Center.
This Buffer Zone is something that was invented so that a certain portion of the public sidewalk was considered a buffer zone.
I have argued on a number of threads that Phelps people should be prosecuted under the clause put in by conservatives in the FACE - protection of religious services. That clause of the FACE Act was put in under the Reagan Administration.
The reason the FACE Act was passed was that pro-lifers were blocking the entrances to abortion clinics. So a special law was enacted to deal with this. But conservatives put in something that the same penalties apply to those who interfere with religious ceremonies.
Those penalties could be a $10,000 fine and/or mandatory jail time.
And I have argued that Phelps group could be prosecuted for interfering with a religious ceremony by what they were doing. Especially if they were on Church or Cemetary property when the Phelps group was doing what they do...
A public sidewalk is still a public sidewalk. If you block it, you can be arrested for that. And if you disturb the peace, you can be arrested for that.
So depending how those who protest outside Recruitment Centers act and where they are, they may be thrown in jail for violating a law (such as disturbing the peace or blocking the sidewalk).
If one looks hard enough, you can find something that people might be doing wrong.
If 20 of Phelps people go out to protest a service man's funeral, then if 200 Patriots go there with signs and flags and dilute the effect of Phelps people, then that is all fair. And if the Phelps crowd happens to pick a fight with 200 Patriots, well, that is there problem...
Many times the media manufactures events. Conservatives must be ready to counter this.
A good example would be what the DC Chapter of Freerepublic does with the Pink Ladies and Walter Reed Hospital...
But I would agree with you, and would encourage Law Enforcement officers to be more active in arresting folks for disturbing the peace.
Certainly what Phelps folks does at funerals disturbs the peace of those who should be allowed to Rest in Peace... (As well as the peace of those who are trying to put the person to rest...)
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BTTT -- starting to win a little bit at a time.
Generally, courts will enter injunctions in appropriate cases against unreasonable exercises of speech (i.e., getting directly in people's faces). Given the language of the First Amendment Freedom of Speech and of Religion, those injunctions should be strictly construed and narrowly crafted. The benefit of the doubt must be given to speech where there is any question. Regulation must be justified as to time, place and manner by legitimate purposes.
Pastor Phelps is engaged in "fighting words" when he screams through a bullhorn at the funeral or burial of a slain soldier, sailor or air force member that the deceased was killed as a judgment of God against the USA for tolerating degenerate lavender hoopla. In plain and non-technical language, he is objectively asking for a justified punch in the mouth from the ordinary mourner. This sort of speech was recognized as unprotected by the SCOTUS more than 60 years ago. One case, Chaplinsky(?), arose from New Hampshire and another arose from New Haven.
Of course, our federal courts often treat abortion as the superconstitutional right befoire which ALL other rights must be abandoned as necessary. Among the infamous injunctions entered by partisan abortion supporters in black robes are the ones that would keep pro-lifers from being heard by women of child-bearing heading into abortion mills for whatever purposes. One such injunction was entered by a federal judge (Arcaro?) at Buffalo, New York, prohibiting the mere reading of Scriptural passages by Pastor Schenk or those associated with him within a wide area around the abortion mills there. I do not believe that Pastor Schenk was blocking a sidewalk. There are literally dozens of injunctions around the country, akin to this Buffalo injunction exhibiting a default position of shutting up pro-lifers who might persuade women not to abort.
The courts got into a bad habit on so-called "symbolic speech" during the Vietnam War era of redefining atrocious behavior as "free speech" rather than jail the likes of Dr. Spock for burning draft cards (as though he was actually eligible to be drafted, which was irrelevant in any event) or flag-burning or whatever other anti-American activity du jour might be called a "right" by the Anti-American Civil Liberties Union before his/her/its majesty da judge.
Stopping the actual killing of innocent human beings by physically interfering (even though trespassing laws or other laws might be apparently broken) were protected by the common law defense of "necessity" in both England and the United States until we asserted "necessity" in the case of abortion mill "Rescues." There are, in many jurisdictions, "vicarious self-defense" statutes whereby one is legally entitled to use such force as is necessary to prevent the injury or killing of an innocent third party.
SCOTUS has invented out of whole cloth an alleged "right" to abortion. SCOTUS is wrong. SCOTUS is rogue. In the case cited in the article underlying this thread. It is not the actual right to abortion that is being challenged but the right to complain to relevant ears about it, at the last minute, at the vicinity of the mill, the right to persuade, the right to shock (if necessary) by the content of speech and to change minds. This is why the First Amendment protects speech. It was not necessary to protect the right of citizen to be sycophant or to recite "Mary Had a Little Lamb in public. We are strong enough to hear speech whose content we despise. We will soon weaken if we do not even hear such things. "Symbolic speech" is another matter. The Founding Fathers were bright enough to say action and speech but said only speech.
The streets and sidewalks belong to you and to me and to every protesting citizen from Angela Davis to Pastor Phelps and to every non-protesting couch potato as well. Those streets and sidewalks (if publicly owned) are the equivalent of the town green in our native New England. They are and must be a public forum. No one has a right to obstruct anyone on those streets, sidewalks and greens and no one has exclusive rights.
The judge in question was apparently appointed by the Arkansas Antichrist. So was SCOTUS Justice Stephen Breyer who has generally protected the free speech rights of pro-lifers as well though Breyer is personally no pro-lifer. The Arkansas Antichrist's Connecticut trial court appointments were better than the likes of Judge Nevas or Judge Dorsey, both GOP appointments. Maybe such decisions as the one cited above are a sign that the long dead "Rule of Law" may be stirring in its grave. That would be appropriate at this time of the year.
As ever, may God bless you and yours in this Holy Season of Easter.
Elk, it's great to hear from you on this.
I agree with your analysis of the objective evil of abortion.
But it seems to me that your reference to necessity, if taken seriously, MUST be extended beyond nonviolent civil disobedience. If necessity is what is in play, then you and Paul Hill have a lot in common.
I'm not sure this is wrong, mind you - but I would caution you that if that's not what you mean, you should make it clear.
God Bless you and your family at this holy season.
I think a court would distinguish his actions as follows. First, the killing of the bodyguard and shooting of his wife can NOT be justified morally or legally. Although the bodyguard was attempting to materially assist the abortionist in his grisly business, the killing of the abortionist was the only action of Hill's which would prevent that morning's killings of babies. The bodyguard was not going to perform abortions. Neither was the bodyguard's wife going to perform abortions.
The probable and only evident purpose in killing the bodyguard was to attempt to escape unharmed. Escaping prosecution, as such, or just plain escaping is not justified by a common law "necessity" to save the babies. It may well be that Hill was not literally attempting escape in that, after killing the abortionist and killing the bodyguard and taking the bodyguard's wife out of the action intentionally or otherwise, Hill sat down and awaited arrest IIRC. Nonetheless, he was morally culpable for the unjustified taking of the life of the bodyguard, at the least, and of the bodyguard's wife's injuries as well. His execution was justified.
That leaves the question of whether, he was morally culpable for taking the abortionist's life even while asserting a necessity defense. Another abortionist at the same abortion mill was shot and killed by Michael Griffin who neither shot nor injured anyone else. The necessity defense is NOT a license to massacre the ordinary law in order to achieve the good of preserving even one baby's life. There were probably 32 or more abortions scheduled for each morning when an abortionist was killed at Pensacola and, using Planned Barrenhood's estimates from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, about 1/4 of them or 8 of them would not subsequently been aborted. Any one of those lives, much less 8 utterly innocent lives in each case, are certainly at least the equivalent in value to either guilty doctor's life. That does not exhaust the investigation, however.
When the police power of the state (which enjoys a great deal of deference from our courts) is exercised, it is expected that a police officer combating a recognized crime will use that force, and NO MORE than that force, reasonably required to achieve a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Paul Hill or Michael Griffin had no more right than would a police officer (and probably less) to shoot even the doctor (analogous to a perp). Hill could have disabled the doctor's car, assaulted the doctor to injure him or maim him (particularly his hands) or far more reasonably still could have organized a mass sit-in in the abortion mill, desterilizing instruments and suction machines, breaking eggs everywhere and making killing impossible on that morning. He would have saved as many babies and not have shot three people, killing two. If it was possible (and it always was) to prevent the day's scheduled baby killing by non-violent Rescue, then those who would save the babies are morally and legally required to refrain from more drastic action.
Whatever one might think of the cause of the old abolitionist John Brown, Brown was morally required to refrain from slaughtering innocent people at Potawatomie Creek in Kansas or from armed resistance to federal troops under Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart in the seizure by Brown of the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry. As Brown was justly executed, so was Hill.
I do believe that Rescues (mass sit-ins at abortion mills) were both morally and legally justified so long as they were carried out by peaceful, non-violent resistance as usually they were. I also believe that the Rescuers were morally and legally justified in peaceful and non-violent resistance to police actions to remove them, and jail them, and to court actions to vindicate the activity of police ordered to defend the abortion mills. Now retired Bishop Rene Gracida of San Antonio or Corpus Christi, Texas, issued a pastoral letter to Catholic police and Catholic sheriff's deputies in his diocese that they were morally entitled, as Catholics, to refuse orders to clear the mills and that, as their bishop, he would actively defend them. Bishop Gracida, a military veteran and paratrooper before entering the priesthood) was generally both a religious and a political conservative (as I understand it) but prioritized innocent human life first over criminal trespass laws.
Catholic bishops, including the late Austin Vaughan (Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York) and the late George Lynch (retired Auxiliary Bishop of Raleigh, North Carolina) both Rescued repeatedly in person and did jail time. Bishop Lynch was tortured by personnel of the West Hartford, Connecticut, police on the weekend of June 17, 1989, a week after Tiannenman Square, despite his saintly modest demeanor, advanced age and fragile health.
With all due respect, I therefore disagree with you in part. That abortion is an objective evil does not morally or legally justify UNNECESSARY levels of evil as a preventative. Only those actions that are the minimum necessary to achieve the purpose are available. Even then, no one is REQUIRED to personally act but necessary and reasonable actions may be justified by circumstances.
God bless you and yours.
Free speech threads draw some really good discussions here
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