Pumping Down The Volume

Regardless of your personal take on the Right To Life/Pro-Choice debate, it is important to be aware of an insidious decision made last week that cuts across both sides. The slice was made in South Carolina where the voice of the pro-choicers is being silenced and this silencing has just been reinforced by the U.S. Supreme Court (see article below). As much as I'd like the world to look like I look, think like I think, and support the ideals I support....I realize that just isn't the system into which we have been thrust. It is the conversation that brings us together. It is the conversation that grows us to higher ground. It is the conversation that cultivates answers to the question of how we all live together peacefully on this planet. The U.S. Supreme Court is turning a deaf ear to that conversation and in so doing, negating a constitutionally endowed right for some to be heard. This is wrong. It's not about the issue, it's about the action. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Court Declines License Plate Case
Appellate Rulings Conflict on Allowing Antiabortion Message
Associated Press
Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A03

The Supreme Court declined yesterday to consider whether states may offer license plates with antiabortion messages, leaving lower courts divided over whether the programs in a dozen states unconstitutionally restrict dissenting views.

Without comment, justices let stand a lower court ruling that South Carolina's license plates bearing the slogan "Choose Life" violate the First Amendment because abortion rights supporters were not given a similar forum to express their beliefs.