Palin's Choice Of Violent Graphics Similar To Anti-Abortion Website That Lost In Court

[KittyWampus]

Thanks to DU'ers below who remembered info and provide links about the anti-Abortion website that lost in court.

This is relevant today, especially in reference to Sarah Palin's map with targets on Democrats and her choice of terminology such as 'reload'.

[pdxmom]

1. It was a case known as the "Nuremberg Files" and the anti-abortion

website lost and SCOTUS refused to hear the case. It was determined that the site had illegal threats and was not protected speech. Here is a link: http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=16266

[KittyWampus]

3. THANKS! The Anti-Abortion Group LOST.

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that anti-abortion activists who created Wild West-style posters and a Web site targeting abortion doctors are liable because their works were illegal threats and not free speech.

But the sharply divided 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, while calling the works "a true threat," ordered a Portland, Ore., federal judge to reduce the $108.5 million in punitive damages a jury awarded to four abortion doctors and two clinics who sued a dozen abortion foes.

The 6-5 ruling by the full appeals court reverses a March 2001 decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit and upholds a 1994 federal law that makes it illegal to incite violence and threaten abortion doctors.

Many members of Congress and others had said that if the three-judge panel’s ruling had stood, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act would have been gutted.

Four doctors testified they feared for their lives, and sued under racketeering laws and the 1994 law that makes it illegal to incite violence against abortion doctors. During trial, targeted abortion doctors testified they used disguises, bodyguards and bulletproof vests, and instructed their children to crouch in the bathtub if they heard gunfire.

"I think it says for the abortion and non-abortion community, if you threaten to kill somebody, the law is not going to protect you," said Maria Vullo, an attorney for Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood, an abortion provider, and the doctors were portrayed on Old West-style "wanted" posters passed out at rallies and featured on the Nuremberg Files, a Web site that listed abortion providers' names and addresses and declared them guilty of crimes against humanity.

A federal judge and the Portland jury found in 1999 that the Web site and some of the posters were "true threats to kill" because the abortion doctors were being tormented and three of them murdered. Once killed, their names were crossed off the list on the Web site.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. I remember something about abortion doctors in gunsights, but...

while a quick search didn't come up with what I was thinking of, I was reminded of this very disturbing bit of history:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1998/11/13/NEWS1052.dtl

I seem to remember the site was eventually taken down and the people behind it charged.

And, for some really depressing reading, here's a short history of violence from people who claim to believe in "life":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence

[KittyWampus]

4. "It is terrorism" From the link you gave. Thanks

"It is terrorism'<

"It's a double-edged sword," she said. "I think the public doesn't understand how extreme this movement is. We want the public to begin to understand the depth of the issue, because it is terrorism."

On the other hand, publicity "gives people new ideas to do something," she said.

Cummings, of the Women's Health Rights Coalition, expressed skepticism about what any task force can accomplish as long as law enforcement, and many Americans, see anti-clinic violence - the daily protests, clinic invasions, harassment of patients and workers and worse - as merely an expression of one side in an ongoing debate over abortion.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1998/11/13/NEWS1052.dtl#ixzz0jCG5OOIo

[KittyWampus]

5. kick