Big anti-abortion judgment appeal

By WND Staff

Only days after an Oregon federal jury handed Planned Parenthood and
four abortion doctors a judgment of $109 million against the American
Coalition of Life Activists, plans to appeal the case on First Amendment
grounds are under way.

The case revolves around a website — no longer posted on the
Internet — known as the “Nuremberg Files.” On the website were the
names of numerous doctors currently performing abortions nationwide;
three of the names on the list had been crossed out due to deaths.

In the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood and the other plaintiffs charged
the defendants with passing out a “hit list” known as the “Deadly Dozen”
posters on which the names of 12 abortion doctors were listed. The
defendants in the case said that although they’ll take full
responsibility for the posters, they have nothing to do with the
website.

“They mistakenly thought we owned the website,” said Charlie Wysong,
a defendant in the case. This mistaken identity occurred when website
owner Neal Horsley, thinking that the American Coalition of Life
Activists would like to have their name on the site, posted it
underneath the list. The ACLA later requested that its name be taken off
the site. Although Horsley complied with the ACLA’s request, the name
wasn’t off the site until after Planned Parenthood had made a hard copy
of the site..

Speaking about the website, Chris Ferrara, one of the defendants’
lawyers, said Horsley came to the trial and testified he didn’t even
know the defendants who were on trial nor was the list in any way
connected to the “Deadly Dozen” posters. Horsley got the list for
himself from a newspaper and posted the information on his site,
according to Ferrara.

Although the website was in no way linked to the defendants in the
case, Cathy Ramey, a writer and editor for Life Advocate magazine as
well as a defendant, said that the website’s server, Mindspring, dropped
it after the judgment. “Mindspring’s free speech has been chilled,”
Ramey said.

Even though the website was a moot issue in the case, it was the
focus of the plaintiffs’ arguments. According to Ferrara, they never
even brought up the posters, which were the real issue in the case.

Ferrara said although there isn’t a threatening word on the posters,
Planned Parenthood is trying to shut down the whole pro-life movement
with this case.

“The verdict is a massive publicity stunt by the abortionists,” said
Ferrara who referred to the possible outcome of the decision as a
“Constitutional Chernobyl” having the potential of destroying basic
First Amendment rights.

Ferrara continued: “What the decision means (if it’s upheld in the
appellate court) is that if any pro-life group makes any literature
about abortionists, they’ll be liable by the 1994 Freedom of Access to
Clinic Entrances Act and racketeering laws.”

Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of
America, doesn’t believe, however, that the decision has destroyed basic
First Amendment rights. In fact, she believes it protects some of the
most basic rights.

“(The) verdict strikes back in defense of our doctors, our patients,
and our constitutional right to provide important health services and
information, free from fear,” Feldt said.

Speaking about the defendants, Feldt said, “These defendants care
nothing about our democratic freedoms. They respect neither the rights
of women nor the lives of the doctors who care for women. Their threats
of violence and their public ‘justification’ of murder are meant to
terrorize and intimidate, so that others cannot exercise their own
rights.”

All the defendants deny Feldt’s accusations of inciting violence and
justifying murder and insist that they were simply exercising their
First Amendment rights to express their opinions about abortion.

“Every one of the defendants had taken a pledge of nonviolence,” said
Harvey Wysong, a paralegal for the defendants.

At the top of the “Deadly Dozen” posters was printed, in big letters,
the phrase “Guilty of crimes against humanity.” Below this, the posters
described how, during World War II, the Nazi regime provided abortions
as a choice for East European and Jewish women. Later, during the
Nuremberg trials, these abortions were seen as a war crime.

Below this explanation was the “Deadly Dozen” list. Following the
list was a $5,000 reward for information leading to arrest, conviction
and revocation of the doctors’ licenses to practice medicine (and
abortions).

Another player in the case was the American Civil Liberties Union, a
self-proclaimed defender of constitutional rights. Taking part in the
case as a “friend of the court,” it didn’t side with either the
defendants or the plaintiffs.

“We were a true friend of the court,” said David Fidanque, executive
director of the Oregon ACLU. “Our position falls somewhere in-between
the two sides.”

Fidanque said that his group argued that there needed to be a higher
standard of proof. The current court standard of proof was whether a
reasonable person making the statement would have foreseen that the
person receiving the statement would have perceived the statement as a
threat to bodily harm. The Oregon ACLU believes that it should also have
to be shown that the defendants who made the posters intended to
threaten others through the distribution of the posters.

“Our goal is to protect both interests in this case without
compromising either one,” said Fidanque.

While the ACLU may have taken a middle ground on the case, Judge
Robert E. Jones didn’t, according to the defendants and others
sympathetic to their case.

“The judge portrayed the plaintiffs as terrorists,” said Paul de
Parrie, who, although not a defendant, was the first to come up with the
idea of the “Nuremberg Files.” De Parrie said that the judge had created
a security situation by making two city blocks around the court house a
“no parking” zone.

According to de Parrie, the judge also allowed the plaintiffs to show
their context of why the pro-life movement was “dangerous,” but, at the
same time, he didn’t allow the defendants to show their context of how
little violence, if any, is actually associated with the pro-life
movement.

Regarding this apparent bias, Charlie Wysong said, “The one thing we
knew going into court was that we were guilty until proven innocent.”

Because of the “biases” in the court room, the defense issued 50 or
more motions for mistrial, but all of the motions were denied.

Before any streets were blocked off to parking, the FBI contributed
to the “hit list” scare surrounding the posters. Soon after the posters
were first distributed, the FBI contacted the doctors on the list and
told them that they were on a “hit list.” According to Wysong, they
offered the doctors 24-hour protection by federal marshals because of
the list.

“Now my free speech rights are determined by someone in the FBI,”
Wysong stated emphatically.

Regardless of what happened in Judge Jones’ courtroom, Wysong and the
others involved with the defense’s case believe the chances are good
that the case will be overturned in appeals.

In fact, the verdict may be falling apart already. Although the
plaintiffs filed a preliminary injunction against the defendants and the
website to prohibit them from ever passing out pro-life literature
again, the judge stated that it is not in his jurisdiction to shut down
the website.

“If the judge starts issuing a preliminary injunction on posters and
websites, he will be on constitutional ‘quick sand,'” said Wysong.

Even if the verdict isn’t overturned, the pro-lifers say they won’t
stop the fight. “When people have been forbidden freedom of the press or
thought, they’ve gone about their business anonymously,” said Wysong.
“If we have to go about our work anonymously, we will.”