On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Jim Guinee wrote (describing a Christian
arrested for blaspheming against Mohammed and facing the death
penalty):
> True news or not, in light of the recent religion/morality/Darwin threads, as
> well as the religious significance this week/weekend has for some of us, I
> find myself being very grateful for being on a listserv and living in a country
> where I can contribute my "religious two cents,"
Sometimes we can have too much of a good thing. Case in point:
March 30, 2001
Graphic anti-abortion web site ruled example of free speech
Judges overturn verdict
Philip Delves Broughton
The Daily Telegraph, with files from The Associated Press and
Reuters
NEW YORK - A lurid anti-abortion Internet site that publishes the
names and addresses of doctors who perform abortions beneath
graphics of dripping blood is merely exercising freedom of
speech, a U.S. court has ruled.
The ruling came the day before police in Dinan, western France,
arrested James Kopp, a fugitive wanted for allegedly gunning down
a New York doctor who performed abortions. Dr. Barnett Slepian,
52, was killed on Oct. 23, 1998, by a sniper as he stood in the
kitchen of his home in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, N.Y.
Mr. Kopp is also thought to have been responsible for attacks on
three abortion doctors in Canada.
"Political speech may not be punished just because it makes it
more likely that someone will be harmed ... by an unrelated third
party," Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the panel.
The Georgia-based Web site compares the legal acceptance of
abortion in the United States to the Nazi Holocaust. Its site
features photographs of dead fetuses and refers to doctors who
perform abortions as "baby butchers."
It includes the home and business addresses of doctors, as well
as the names and details of their families, encouraging opponents
of abortion to make their feelings known to them.
A spate of violent attacks on abortion clinics and doctors led to
calls to shut the Web site down.
Critics said the site went far beyond advocating a position and
instead incited violence. Doctors featured on the site's "Wanted"
posters took to wearing bulletproof vests and travelling to work
with police protection. Dr. Slepian's name was crossed out on the
site soon after he was killed.
-Stephen
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at:
http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
