Court to Decide Whether Pro-Life Signs Pose “Traffic Hazard”
by Rusty Pugh
(AgapePress) – The leader of a Montana pro-life group whose graphic signs of aborted babies have been ruled illegal says he plans to take the matter to court.
Members of Pro-Life Great Falls have been ordered to stop carrying signs with graphic pictures of mutilated babies as part of their protests against Planned Parenthood.
Group spokesman Jonathan Martin says he was told by the city prosecutor's office that the signs created a “traffic hazard” and a “public nuisance” because they caused drivers to look.
Martin says they will now let a court decide if the signs should be allowed. He says the prosecutor is trampling their constitutional rights. Martin argues they are being singled out, and wants to know where city officials will draw the line on what is considered a “traffic hazard.” He knows the signs are offensive, but believes they are necessary.
“We ourselves dislike the signs intensely. They're horrible signs, and we don't like being out there with them,” he says. “But it is the reality of the murder of unborn children in this nation, and we tell people that there are two reasons that we stand out there. It is not for pagan America, because the Bible says 'the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.' But it is as a witness and a watchman, and a rebuke to the church, for the church has been silent too long.”
Martin believes the signs serve another purpose to allow mothers who may be considering an abortion the opportunity to see exactly what happens to their unborn child at the hands of the abortion butcher.
by Fred Jackson
(AgapePress) – A ruling from the New Jersey Supreme Court yesterday appears to go to the heart of a critical national debate going on right now over whether an embryo is a piece of property or a human life.
Less than a week after President Bush announced his decision to allow a limited amount of embryonic stem cell research, yesterday's decision by the New Jersey high court has offered yet another scenario to ponder. The case involves a married couple who began in vitro fertilization treatments back in the early 1990s. That process produced eleven embryos, four of which were implanted without result before she became pregnant by natural means. The couple separated in September 1996, just months after the birth of a daughter.
Their divorce settlement in 1998 left open the question of what to do with the seven remaining frozen embryos. To date, lower court battles have sided with the woman's wishes not to allow her ex-husband to donate the embryos to another couple or to have any of them implanted in a future wife.
In the high court's ruling, the justices again sided with the woman. However, they gave the man the option to either keep the embryos in frozen storage or have them destroyed. The man, identified only as “J.B.” says he will keep them in storage at least until his lawyer files an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)