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Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:58 pm
by Gob
A US man's decision to lash out with a billboard ad saying his ex-girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes has touched off a legal debate over free speech and privacy rights.
The sign on Alamogordo's main thoroughfare in New Mexico shows 35-year-old Greg Fultz holding the outline of an infant. The text reads, "This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child!"
Fultz's ex-girlfriend has taken him to court for harassment and violation of privacy. A domestic court official has recommended the billboard be removed.
Advertisement: Story continues below But Fultz's attorney argues the order violates his client's free speech rights.
"As distasteful and offensive as the sign may be to some, for over 200 years in this country the First Amendment protects distasteful and offensive speech," Todd Holmes said.
The woman's friends say she had a miscarriage, not an abortion, according to a report in the Albuquerque Journal.
Holmes disputes that, saying his case is based on the accuracy of his client's statement.
"My argument is: What Fultz said is the truth," Holmes said.
The woman's lawyer said she had not discussed the pregnancy with her client. But for Ellen Jessen, whether her client had a miscarriage or an abortion is not the point. The central issue is her client's privacy and the fact that the billboard has caused severe emotional distress, Jessen said.
"Her private life is not a matter of public interest," she told the Alamogordo Daily News.
Jessen says her client's ex-boyfriend has crossed the line.
"Nobody is stopping him from talking about father's rights ... but a person can't invade someone's private life."
For his part, Holmes invoked the US Supreme Court decision from earlier this year concerning the Westboro Baptist Church, which is known for its anti-gay protests at military funerals and other high-profile events. He believes the high court's decision to allow the protests, as hurtful as they are, is grounds for his client to put up the abortion billboard.
"Very unpopular offensive speech," he told the Alamogordo Daily News. "The Supreme Court, in an 8 to 1 decision, said that is protected speech."
Holmes says he is going to fight the order to remove the billboard through a District Court appeal.
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/jilted-exbo ... z1OdLuYKbR
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:04 pm
by Scooter
Until I read it I thought it was a picture of the girlfriend. It still looks like it could be woman even now that I know.
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:07 pm
by Scooter
In response, she should put up a billboard with a picture of herself, holding her two index fingers an inch apart, with a caption that says, "This would have been the length of my boyfriend's penis, had it not been chopped off in an unfortunate agricultural accident."
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:10 pm
by Gob
LOL!!
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 3:16 am
by loCAtek
Scooter wrote:Until I read it I thought it was a picture of the girlfriend. It still looks like it could be woman even now that I know.
Everybody looks like a woman to you, LOL
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 4:18 am
by BoSoxGal
Whether she aborted or miscarried, I'd say the one clear fact is that she's better off not having to coparent with that control freak the rest of her life.
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 4:37 am
by liberty
Damn, he does look like a woman?
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:48 pm
by @meric@nwom@n
What a cruel sonofabitch. If i could just drop things and go I would head out there and do every legal thing I could find to do to make his life as miserable as I could make it.
Additionally he does look like a very ugly female.
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 5:34 pm
by Long Run
The pro-life supporters are hurting their cause with this kind of attack. They don't have to worry about convincing the 30-35% who are solidly in the pro-life camp. It is the middle 30% which are in favor of some forms of restrictions that they need to convince of the need for additional restrictions. This sort of thing will turn off the moderate voters.
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 5:06 pm
by Guinevere
Wow, he is one feminine looking dude, and not in a pretty kind of way.
At a minimum, he's probably in violation of HIPAA, which seems to me is a pretty good basis for ordering the board come down. As I've said over and over to certain types on the old board, there is no such thing as an absolute right to free speech. For better or worse, as a society, our legislature and our courts have decided that certain types of speech (or speech in certain fora) are able to be regulated and controlled.
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 6:28 pm
by Sue U
To be fair to this douchebag (I know, right?), he has not identified the woman or disclosed any actual private health information (not being her doctor he has no actual information to disclose). I think any court ought to be highly reluctant to order the billboard's removal, but it is a highly fact-sensitive issue: otherwise-permissible/protected conduct can be restrained if it actually amounts to harassment, but I'm not at all sure this would meet such a test (unless the billboard is right outside her home or workplace).
(I had a similar idea to Scooter's, although my counter-billboard would read, "Why would you think you were the father?")
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:50 pm
by BoSoxGal
at that final line!
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 12:18 am
by rubato
Long Run wrote:The pro-life supporters are hurting their cause with this kind of attack. They don't have to worry about convincing the 30-35% who are solidly in the pro-life camp. It is the middle 30% which are in favor of some forms of restrictions that they need to convince of the need for additional restrictions. This sort of thing will turn off the moderate voters.
The anti-women group have not moved the dial in 35 years. The same percentage today supports the outlines of Roe v Wade that did so then.
They need to grow up and accept that their unsupported superstitions cannot govern.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 12:21 am
by rubato
The billboard is an act of hatred by a low-functioning asshole. Other hate-driven assholes joined the party with him.
A reasonable person would not predict that he will ever have a meaningful relationship with a high-functioning woman ever in his life. Who would want to be with someone who was so vicious?
yrs,
rubato
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 12:38 pm
by loCAtek
Well, in that way it, it could be educational; the women of that region should take their friends and daughters to see it and say, "Look: there's a picture of what they mean by relationship poison."
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 6:35 am
by Andrew D
Once again, we see the relentless prejudice against men when it comes to reproductive matters. This is pitched as being about the woman's personal life. Why not look at it as a man putting up a distasteful billboard about his own personal life? Or is hers the only personal life that matters?
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 11:32 am
by Scooter
When he makes the accusation that his ex-girlfriend "killed his baby" he has made it about her personal life, particularly if, as she claims, she had a spontaneous miscarriage which would make the statement is libellous.
If the billboard read something like "This would have a picture of my 2-month old baby, but he/she was never born," it would have been odd, but it would have been about him. But instead he chose to make it about lashing out at his ex-girlfriend.
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 12:11 pm
by Andrew D
Well, if the statement is false, then he had no business making it. (That does not make it libelous. From the billboard, I cannot identify the woman to whom he refers. Can you?)
Nonetheless, the entity which he considers to have been a child was every bit as much his as it was hers. Her aborting it (if that is what happened) was a part of his personal life, not just hers.
Or maybe you believe that the child (if that is what it was) was part of his personal life only if she magnanimously condescended to make it so?
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 1:18 pm
by @meric@nwom@n
Reproductive issues must and will continue to be slanted in favor of women as long as the risks that come with pregnancy continue to rest entirely on the shoulders of women.
My answer to men who would wish to force women to bend to their will in this matter would be to tell them to take issue with nature that created you unable to bear children, or better still keep your pants zipped.
Re: Freedom of billboard rights.
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:54 pm
by Scooter
Andrew D wrote:Well, if the statement is false, then he had no business making it. (That does not make it libelous. From the billboard, I cannot identify the woman to whom he refers. Can you?)
You and I cannot, but I am sure there are people in that relatively small community who can identify her by knowing that the man in the picture was her ex-boyfriend.
Nonetheless, the entity which he considers to have been a child was every bit as much his as it was hers. Her aborting it (if that is what happened) was a part of his personal life, not just hers.
And if he kept it about his child, that would be a different matter. Instead, he chose to refer to her and to whatever medical problem and/or procedure she went through that caused the termination of her pregnancy.
Or maybe you believe that the child (if that is what it was) was part of his personal life only if she magnanimously condescended to make it so?
Had the child been born, of course it would have become a part of his personal life. Until then, unless a legislature or a court decides that visitation rights with a fetus can be made obligatory...