A HUG CAN GET YOU ARRESTED

 

… if you’re a pro-lifer wishing to extend a compassionate hug to a distraught woman near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Harrisburg, PA. As Becky Biter saw a sobbing woman outside the abortion clinic, she gently consoled and hugged her.  The woman welcomed the hug, but the Harrisburg authorities did not.  That’s because Becky has a pro-life viewpoint, and in Harrisburg, you can stand on the sidewalk and say anything you want or hand out any literature you want, but NO pro-life expression is permitted inside their “buffer zone.” Last week, Liberty Counsel filed a new case with the U.S. Supreme Court, Reilly v. City of Harrisburg, which seeks to overturn the anti-free speech ordinance Planned Parenthood pushed in an effort to prevent anyone from saying anything about their gruesome trade. Read on. — Mat Help Liberty Counsel defend life AND free speech by supporting our legal fund today. When you do, a special Challenge Grant will DOUBLE THE IMPACT of your donation. Please, give generously.

Friend,

Colleen Reilly and Becky Biter are two women who just wanted to offer comfort, aid, and prayer to the desperate women they saw entering and exiting a Harrisburg, PA, abortion clinic.

Becky’s heart broke the day she saw a young woman sobbing outside the clinic. 

A tenderhearted mother herself, Becky moved to console the tearstained young woman with a hug. 

But, according to Harrisburg officials, Becky will be arrested if she again enters this city’s “abortion buffer zone.” 

Even for a hug, she would be arrested because Becky is a pro-life American.

STOP the Assault on Christian Free Speech!

If Becky had been any other passerby and wanted to communicate anything not pro-life, she could have crossed the city’s invisible “Planned Parenthood protection line.”

Becky and Colleen provide quiet one-on-one conversations, peaceful sidewalk counseling, and prayer while distributing life-affirming literature. 

In 2012, afraid of losing the opportunity to abort more children, Planned Parenthood leaned on the City of Harrisburg to ban prayer, pro-life literature distribution, or speech anywhere near its abortion clinic.

The City of Harrisburg kowtowed and obeyed Planned Parenthood’s clearly unlawful speech ban demand and enacted an “Interference with Access to Health Care Facilities” ordinance.

As a result of the unlawful speech ban, one may talk about or distribute anything in the “buffer zone,” as long as the speech or literature is not pro-life. 

Helpless children are slaughtered in abortion clinics every day. 

And Harrisburg is doing Planned Parenthood’s bidding to silence pro-life speech that might interfere with their grisly trade.

This ordinance is a clear violation of First Amendment free speech guarantees. 

However, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals shockingly and erroneously upheld the city’s unlawful ban.

On Tuesday, October 10, Liberty Counsel filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review Reilly v. City of Harrisburg.

Defend Life AND Free Speech!

Liberty Counsel is also asking the High Court to overrule Hill v. Colorado, a decision released by the Supreme Court in 2000.

The Hill v. Colorado case held that a statute prohibiting “oral protest, education, or counseling” with individuals attempting to enter a health care facility was content neutral, despite the fact that police officers had to review the content of the speech to determine if it was covered by the law.

The High Court’s subsequent decisions in McCullen v. Coakley and Reed v. Town of Gilbert disagreed with Hill and found that laws restricting speech based on its function or purpose are content restrictions “regardless of the government’s benign motive, content-neutral justification, or lack of 'animus toward the ideas contained’ in the regulated speech.”

The Third Circuit’s practice of relying on Hill to categorize buffer-zone laws as content-neutral speech restrictions distorts the First Amendment.

The Third Circuit’s reliance on Hill is erroneous, and the Supreme Court should officially overturn Hill. 

Until the Supreme Court does so, lower courts will continue to distort the First Amendment and undermine free speech.

Defend Religious Freedom!

Meanwhile in Congress …

Planned Parenthood has wheedled its way into HR 15, managing to have language inserted that would make abortion up until birth a federally protected “right.” 

The measure would even overturn bans on gruesome partial birth abortions, in which the abortionist births all of the baby except the head, then stabs a sharp object into the living child’s brain or uses scissors to sever the child’s spinal cord at the nape of the neck, before removing the baby’s then-lifeless body.

Such an act is horrifically gruesome. 

But Planned Parenthood and at least 212 members of Congress are poised to make this American style of baby butchery legal. 

And they want YOU to pay for these heinous acts with YOUR tax dollars.

We must STOP HR 15. 

Now 212 Democrats have co-sponsored this bill. 

They only need six Republicans to join them, and this religious-freedom-ending, baby-killing bill will be the law of the land. 

Flood Congress NOW with your demand they VOTE NO on HR 15! 

Mat Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel
 

P.S. DOUBLE THE IMPACT OF YOUR GIFT with our Challenge Grant. P.P.S. Want to do more? Fax Congress to VOTE NO on HR 15! And sign the petition.

Source:

“Abortion Buffer Zone Case Goes to Supreme Court.” Liberty Counsel, October 10, 2023. https://lc.org/newsroom/details/101023-abortion-buffer-zone-case-goes-to-supreme-court.

Liberty Counsel is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
 

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