The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Hands First Amendment Victory to Orange County-Based Center for Bio-Ethical Reformby Staff
July 10, 2008
LOS ANGELES, (christiansunite.com) -- A federal appellate panel ruled Wednesday that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department violated the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform's (CBR) free speech rights when two CBR associates were forced to move a mobile billboard display of enlarged photos of early-term aborted fetuses away from a Rancho Palos Verdes middle school campus.
The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), a non-profit pro-life educational foundation, sued the LA County Sheriff's Department and an assistant principal at Dodson Middle School, claiming civil rights and First Amendment violations. The mobile billboard truck was part of the group's Reproductive Choice Campaign, which seeks to "expose as many people as possible to the realities of abortion."
The Thomas More Law Center, based in Ann Arbor, MI, represented CBR.
CBR StatementWe are grateful to God for granting the Founding Fathers the wisdom to create appellate courts which can rectify the mistakes of trial court judges. In this case, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals almost totally reversed the trial judge on almost every issue. This is a huge win for the First Amendment. This is an even larger win for middle school and high school students who are being lied to about abortion and who will now learn the truth as our billboard trucks drive past their schools displaying large aborted baby photos.
The First Amendment means nothing if it doesn't mean the right to show people things they don't want to see. It is frightening to realize that our children are being taught their most basic Constitutional rights by teachers who either don't understand the Constitution, or don't respect it. This legal victory will also teach the students at Dodson Middle School important lessons about the Constitution.
The ultimate irony concerning attempts by teachers to censor our display of aborted baby photos is that those same teachers rightly realize the importance of showing their students equally horrifying photos of black people being beaten to their knees or even lynched for merely trying to register to vote. There are some realities which can not be adequately communicated with words alone. Students who are old enough to have an abortion are old enough to see an abortion. -- Gregg Cunningham, Executive Director, Center for Bio-Ethical Reform
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