When
is the last time you remember the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) having an
unanimous, 9-0, decision? It’s been a
long time! Well, it just happened. SCOTUS rejected a lower court decision
preventing Susan B. Anthony List (SBAL), a pro-life organization, from
suing a Democratic congressman over a ‘freedom of speech’ claim. The case, involving an SBAL advertisement claiming that the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) funds abortions, will be
allowed to move forward. [I wrote about
this in my May 2, 2014 blog entitled – “Should the Free Speech of Proponents of
Pro-Life Positions be Protected?”]
“Today’s
decision [June 16] by the court is a step toward victory for the freedom of
speech and the broad coalition of groups who have supported SBAL throughout this case. The truth or falsity of political speech
should be judged by voters, not government bureaucrats,” SBAL President Marjorie Dannenfelser said.
During
the 2010 election, SBAL funded a
campaign telling voters that Congressman Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) voted for
taxpayer-funded abortion because of his vote for Obamacare. When SBAL
sought to place the message on a billboard, Driehaus threatened to sue under an
Ohio law that makes it a crime to publish false statements about a candidate. Due to the lawsuit threat, the billboard owner
declined to let SBAL rent the space. SBAL
sued Driehaus, arguing that the lawsuit threat violated their freedom of
speech. The U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 6th Circuit ruled that SBAL did
not have standing to sue because the case was dismissed after the election was
over. SBAL lawyers argued that the group still suffered harm even though
they were never prosecuted. All nine SCOTUS
justices agreed and overturned the Appeals Court’s decision.
The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a pro-choice legal group, but
supported SBAL’s freedom of speech
concerns in the case. “Speech is rarely
black and white — oftentimes whether a statement is true or false may be a
matter of opinion,” ACLU of Ohio
Legal Director James Hardiman said in 2010. “If the government silences one side of the
debate, the public is less informed and others may be fearful of criticizing
elected officials. The answer to
unpopular speech is not less, but more speech.”
While
some have claimed the case is about a “right to lie” in elections, Dannenfelser
argued not only for her group’s free speech rights, but that the SBAL claims are true. “It is beyond dispute that Obamacare contains
multiple abortion-funding provisions,” she said. “This reality will continue to be an issue in
the mid-term elections and future election cycles. As a result of the SCOTUS’s decision, SBAL is now one step closer in its quest
to unleash the 1st Amendment from the constraints imposed by Ohio’s
unconstitutional false speech statute. We
are optimistic that the district court will rule quickly and will side with the
1st Amendment, so that we may proceed in Ohio — without fear of prosecution —
with our ongoing efforts to inform voters that their elected representatives
voted for taxpayer funded abortion.”
In
the oral arguments for the case, SCOTUS Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the
court’s liberal members, pointed out that abortion funding in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is as least a disputed question,
noting that the Court had recently heard arguments in a case involving two
Christian-owned companies – Hobby Lobby
and Conestoga Woods Specialties – that
sued over the ACA’s birth control
mandate, which, they argue, requires them to cover abortifacients.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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