Wisconsin Supreme Court Protects Pro-Life Advocate's Free Speech Rights

[Webster]

American Family News: Liberal state court upholds pro-lifer's free speech rights

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has upheld the First Amendment rights of a pro-life activist who was banned by a lower court from speaking to a nurse outside a Planned Parenthood facility.

In the ruling, which was unanimous, the state court ruled in favor of pro-life activist Brian Aish and vacated a county judge’s injunction against him that dated back to 2020. The abortion clinic, located in Blair, Wisconsin, has since closed its doors.

A state appeals court upheld the injunction in 2022, leading to the successful appeal by Thomas More Society of behalf of its client, Aish. "If the government, in this case the Wisconsin courts, can shut down your speech, they can shut it down on anything," says Thomas More attorney Joan Mannix.

Aish preached and protested outside the clinic dating back to 2014. In 2019, a clinic nurse named Nancy Kindschy claimed the pro-life activist had threatened her while he stood on a nearby sidewalk. A judge sided with the nurse and ordered Aish to cease communicating with Kindschy when she walked past.

The seven-member state court is famous for its liberal justices but one of the concurring opinions stated the lower court “never deemed Aish's statements true threats, and no reasonable factfinder could have made such a finding based on the record."

"The kind of speech most entitled to First Amendment protection,” Mannix tells AFN, “is speech in a public forum, like the public sidewalk, on a matter of public interest. For example, things like religion, abortion, political issues."