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Breaking News Alert Justice Jackson Complains First Amendment Is 'Hamstringing' Feds' Censorship Efforts

Do Your Politics Require You To Oppose Bill Of Rights? That’s Not Good

The suggestion that women can navigate, say, the Kermit Gosnells of the world but not living in a country with the First Amendment is bizarre.

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In McCullen v. Coakley, all nine Supreme Court justices ruled that a Massachusetts law that creates a no-speech zone within 35 feet of an abortion clinic violates the First Amendment.

Though the opinion was unanimous, the justices divided sharply on their reasoning and the majority crafted a fairly narrow ruling. But, again, it was a ruling in favor of free speech rights of pro-lifers and that’s no small potatoes.

But what’s interesting is how pro-choice activists responded. Here’s the head of the country’s largest abortion business:

The fairly narrow ruling in favor of protecting First Amendment rights is “devastating”? Interesting. Planned Parenthood, we might want to be reminded, ends the lives of more than 300,000 unborn children each year and receives half a billion dollars in annual taxpayer funding.

Progressive media outlet Think Progress apparently thinks the First Amendment is uncool for the following reason:

The suggestion that women can navigate, say, the Kermit Gosnells of the world but not living in a country with the First Amendment is bizarre. But it’s also telling that the “right to choose” to end the lives of one’s unborn children is something that is more important to progressives than the actual God-given freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

Also Freedom of Religion

The Supreme Court will soon rule on whether the federal government should be allowed to begin forcing people to pay for their employees’ abortion drugs, if those employers have strong religious objections. This might seem like a no-brainer for Americans but it’s a super tough question for some progressives.

Some 300 plaintiffs have filed nearly 100 lawsuits against the Obamacare-spawned regulation, saying it violates their religious freedom. For example, one of those lawsuits was filed by Hobby Lobby, a company owned by devout Christians. While they already provide insurance that pays for 16 forms of birth control required under Obamacare regulations, they decline to cover four forms of birth control that can operate by ending a new human life after it has begun.

In response, Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights agitators have fought … the for-profit and not-for-profit groups, saying that appeals to religious freedom are hogwash.

See, for example:

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Yes, because we all know that religion is something that should be bottled up and locked inside the four walls of teeney-tiny sanctuaries, just like George Washington intended. If it actually has any effect on what you do outside of those walls, the government is here to stop you immediately. Or something.

In any case, if you think that your regulatory agenda in favor of abortion trumps the religious freedom of other people, you may be a modern abortion rights activist.

But doesn’t it give you pause? Maybe if the thing you support requires running roughshod over the First Amendment, there’s some kind of flaw with your approach.