First Amendment Confrontation May Loom in Post-Roe Fight

[Nevilledog]

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Michael Gold
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An anti-abortion group recently proposed model legislation for states that would make it a crime to pass along information “by telephone, the internet or any other medium of communication” that is used to terminate a pregnancy.

A demonstrator outside the Supreme Court on Sunday.
nytimes.com

First Amendment Confrontation May Loom in Post-Roe Fight
Without a federal right to abortion, questions about how states can regulate speech about it suddenly become much murkier.
4:49 PM · Jun 29, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/business/media/first-amendment-roe-abortion-rights.html

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https://archive.ph/bXjR3

The Supreme Court declared clearly last week that there is no federal right to abortion. But how the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization affects the right to talk about abortion remains far from settled, teeing up what legal experts said was a looming confrontation over whether the First Amendment allows censoring speech about a medical procedure that will become illegal in much of the country.

In states where abortion is outlawed, for instance, how can women be informed of their options elsewhere? Will media outlets be free to publish advertisements across state lines from providers operating in states where abortion has not been outlawed — as the Supreme Court long ago ruled they could? Will women be allowed to accept information about abortion if they then decide to terminate a pregnancy but don’t live in a state that allows it? What if states move to make this kind of exchange of information illegal?

“You have the right, ostensibly, to talk about abortion,” said Will Creeley, the legal director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “The question then becomes whether that talk can be regulated if it aids and abets or encourages others to have an abortion.

“That presents a First Amendment problem,” he added. “Will you still have the First Amendment right to speak when you no longer have the constitutional right to an abortion? And that is going to get messy.”

A top anti-abortion lobbying group, the National Right to Life Committee, recently proposed model legislation for states that would make it a crime to pass along information “by telephone, the internet or any other medium of communication” that is used to terminate a pregnancy.

*snip*

Please let there be a hell.

[Liberty Belle]

1. If hate speech is protected, and info on how to make weapons, why not this?

That said, if a judge could show that language led someone to commit a criminal act, whether a hate crime or an abortion where illegal, then possibly a poster could be in trouble and certainly the woman getting the abortion would be.

Advice I've seen says if you are seeking an abortion where it's banned, use encrypted software and if you must make a call, use a burner phone. One video I saw by a Texas woman who got an illegal abortion recently said she used a burner phone to set up a fake account and ordered from an out-of-state clinic that had abortion pills sent to her from India.

One thing I was surprised to learn: in Texas the 6-week clock to get an abortion starts when your last period occurred, not the date you actually think you got pregnant. So by the time you miss a period, you only have 2 weeks. Many women have irregular periods; mine was often 2-3 weeks late, so this would have left me with no window at all.

[Ocelot II]

2. What next, keep pregnant women locked in isolation cells

for the duration of their pregnancies to be sure they can neither travel nor communicate? I wouldn't put it past these Nazis. Even in the bad old days before Roe, at least women could travel to other states for abortions and make arrangements over the phone.

[Karma13612]

3. They are letting a coach

Lead prayers on school grounds during school sports practice.

They said you can’t limit a person’s access to a concealed carry pistol permit.

Yea, if they want to tie themselves into a pretzel and say that we can no longer communicate over the internet about abortion, sure. Bring out the AK-47’s, the jackbooted black clad guards lining the streets and the red-dresses and white bonnets, and start cutting fingers off for reading books.

And don’t forget the stonings. And the hangings from cement walls.

Sure, go right ahead. If that happens, I will leave my husband here in America (I’m 68 years old, and married for 22 years) because he refuses to return to his homeland of England. At least in England, they aren’t turning the clock backwards. Sure, it’s expensive as hell, but they are turning women in to human incubators in this country. He is complacent at 74, and I understand. But, this is war.

[tulipsandroses]

4. I actually want them to pass some of these extreme laws

When it starts ensnaring all kinds of folks, They will get the boot. They have taken us back 50 years, but it’s not 50 years ago. When you start having viral stories about the neighbor down the street arrested and taken away from her kids for aiding and abetting abortion, 10 year old pregnant kids, unfortunately deaths, repeatedly played on tv, on the internet, they will get booted. It’s easy to do things in abstract, when the consequences of these actions, start to bear fruit, I think there will be hell to pay.