Which argument the Court found sadly lacking. I do not recall the size of the buffer zones offhand, but I do recall that they were minimal. Their only purpose was to protect abortion candidates from physical intimidation. The activists were fundamentally unable to prove that five or ten feet limited their ability to express their opinion.
I do not recall the details of the case you mention regarding the woman and her sign. Perhaps the sign was a physical danger to those around her? I really do not know.
I am not making up the other side’s position. I am dismissing the activists’ specious rhetoric. Obviously I am not entirely off base, as the Supreme Court dismissed it as well.
Absolutely not. Abortion is a right guaranteed by the Roe v. Wade decision. Neither states nor the federal government may pass laws prohibiting abortion (though states have gone to many lengths to circumvent and undermine this ruling). Freedom of speech is also a right, protected by the first amendment of the Constitution.
If activists are permitted to protest one protected legal right, they are allowed to protect another. Anti Dr. Laura activists are exercising their freedom of expression just as anti-abortion activists are. How is this inconsistent?
If the size was only five or ten feet, as you suggest, then I conceded that the sole purpose is to bar physical restraint on entry. But I think it’s actually 50 feet, which serves a different purpose.
Many people, possibly including Supreme Court justices, are in favor of free speech until in shows signs of being actually effective in a manner that they do not prefer. When that happens, inventive exceptions must be created.
I did not accuse you (or these activists) of being inconsistent. (I also made clear earlier that I think everyone can boycott anyone that they please, and in fact called you to task for not including the networks). It was you who raised the charge of inconsistency, saying that Dr Laura’a supporters were inconsistent. I am merely disagreeing with this charge.
Ok, I will look it up. However, there is precedent for such a restrictive buffer zone. No electioneering is allowed within 200 feet of a polling place. Sure, the two situations are not precisely analogous, but the precedent stands.
Of course. Hence there are still flag burning rules in man states. Those are wrong, IMHO, and the Supreme Court is right. Just because it may have infringed on freedom of expression in the past does not invalidate this judgment.
And I agreed with you. We only did not boycott the networkd because it would have invited more unenlightened freedom of speech criticism, not because it was wrong or illegal. Just inapproproate.
But you haven’t provided any substantive reasoning to support your disagreement. It is entirely possible that I am missing something enormous, so do not hesitate to fill me in. As it stands, many Dr Laura supporters decried the judgment preventing them from harassing abortion candidates, and equally decried any attempts to boycott her show. Please tell me how this is consistent.
Acording to what I found here the Supremes have upheld buffer zones as large as 36 feet.**
Activists are attempting to prevent Dr Laura from getting her message out. Buffer zones are an attempt to stop anti-abortionists from getting their message out.
I have already shown to my satisfaction why the contention that buffer zones inhibit anti-abortion activists getting their message out is completely specious, yet the fact that they are trying to inhibit a woman’s guaranteed right to have an abortion still stands. I suppose we must agree to disagree at this point.
Maeglin, IzzyR, I think you two are talking past each other here, not with each other. If you two aren’t going to agree on premises, I don’t think your debate’s going to go very far.
A few things I will interject.
The buffer zone around polling places was originally established/allowed to prevent physical intimidation of voters. This is an IIRC from Constitutional Law class. If you want a case law cite, I will try to track it down.
The buffer zone concept is actually applied in many circumstances, just usually not called thus. Union picketers, for example, can’t physically block the building they are picketing, even when they are picketing on public sidewalks. In fact, courts go even further and often limit the number of people allowed to picket, so as to cut down on the physical intimidation.
Physical intimidation is, to some extent, expressive conduct, and is therefore, to some extent, protected by the First Amendment. However, it gets balanced against the rights of those being picketed to go about their legal activities.
The interesting thing about the abortion clinic case was the distance involved. I’ll leave it for you two to decide whether the distance adversely impacted the anti-abortion activists ability to engage in “pure” speech.
Sua
Is freedom of speech someone spitting in my face because I want to have an abortion? Throwing things at me…making me feel even worse?
How is that “pro-life?”
Anyhoo…
“The First Amendment is not the Eleventh Commandment. Its
protection does not extend to ALL speech.”
Ha! I love it! What a fucking hypocrite! Like that’s a big surprise, however…
Well, it might be considered a form of expression, but most likely, it would be considered a form of assault. Most freedoms are allowed as long as they don’t infringe of the freedom of others.
My girlfriend, when recently expounding on how much she hates Dr. Laura and how much of a hypocrite she (Dr. Laura) is, stopped suddenly and told me, “But then, everybody is a hypocrite in some way, so it would be hypocritical of me to call her that.”