Oakland Gets Slapped for Suppressing Abortion Protests
The City of Oakland has earned a reprimand from the Ninth Circuit for discriminating against anti-abortion protestors. When the Ninth Circuit has to stick up for pro-lifers, you know things are bad.
What makes this case significant is that it exposes the reality of laws that prohibit speech near abortion clinics. For more than a decade, states and cities have enacted such laws as a way of stopping abortion protests. Oakland's ordinance is typical: it creates a 100-foot "bubble" around clinics, within which nobody can come within 8 feet of a patient.
A blatant violation of free speech, one might think. But in 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in Hill v Colorado that such laws were valid under the First Amendment because they are "content neutral," that is, they don't target any particular viewpoint. Dissenters such as Antonin Scalia tried in vain to point out the absurdity of this argument; as though abortion clinics were beset by equal numbers of pro- and anti-abortion protestors. Nobody with an ounce of common sense was under any illusion about the intent of these laws.
But Oakland finally provided a good test case. For in that City, police allow pro-abortion "escorts" to accompany patients to abortion clinics, while they stop pro-lifers from doing so much as handing a leaflet to the same patients. That was too much even for the Ninth Circuit. Granted, the case will be remanded to the District Court for further proceedings, but this is a huge step. And maybe -- just maybe -- this will lead to other successful challenges to these "content neutral" laws.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Oakland Gets Slapped for Suppressing Abortion Protests
Are you sure the usual judge didn't call in sick that day?
Jan '11
Re: Oakland Gets Slapped for Suppressing Abortion Protests
Adam Freedman:
[...] the Supreme Court ruled in Hill v Colorado that such laws were valid under the First Amendment because they are "content neutral," that is, they don't target any particular viewpoint.
[...] For in that City, police allow pro-abortion "escorts" to accompany patients to abortion clinics, while they stop pro-lifers from doing so much as handing a leaflet to the same patients. That was too much even for the Ninth Circuit.
That's pretty funny.
The law is only justified if it's content neutral, but they allow pro-abortion "escorts." Pay no attention to that escort behind the curtain.