This is the pro argument for whether the abortion protestors have a right to protest. To read the con argument, click here.
It was hard to miss the posters of bloody fetuses driving into school Sept. 2. Shocked remarks were exchanged among students about how such a thing could be legal. But this anti-abortion group, The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, has a right to display these graphic images.
Being pro-choice, I am especially against the message this group spread. Yet, I am not against their right to say it. A common response to this is: “But there are limits to free speech. You can’t yell fire in a theater.”
Yes, there are limits. However, we shouldn’t be asking why the abortion protesters deserve protection, but why they are under attack. “The content of the speech is revolting” doesn’t seem like a strong enough reason to persecute these people.
In fact, the point of the First Amendment is to protect the right to express ideas that we do find revolting. It wasn’t written so that we can say things like, how cute kittens are, or how unicorns rank among my top favorite mythical creatures. It was written to protect our right to say things that disgust others.
Just think of the Westboro Baptist Church. Picketing funerals of dead soldiers and proclaiming “God hates fags” is an absolutely horrendous message. Yet the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the church does have a right to their protests.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who was involved with the Westboro Baptist Church case, wrote that “speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and – as it did here – inflict great pain.”
But under the First Amendment, he continued, “we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.” Free speech is one of the foundational values of America, and protecting this value requires protection of speech that could upset others. Otherwise, public debate on important issues could be choked.
There are a great many things that we can do to go up against the messages of these types of groups. Creating loopholes in the First Amendment is not one of them.
Scott Novak is an Opinion Editor on The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.