First Amendment Confrontation May Loom in Post-Roe Fight [View all]

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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.