Abortion Battle Rages: Bel Aire, Kan. Becomes 1st US City to Outlaw Graphi

[Judi Lynn]

Abortion Battle Rages: Bel Aire, Kan. Becomes 1st US City to Outlaw Graphic Abortion Signs; ORW President Faces 6 Months in Jail for Daring to Show Fo
18 minutes ago


BEL AIRE, Kan., Jan. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Operation Rescue West President Troy Newman faces six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for daring to take the Truth Truck to the public streets of Bel Aire, Kansas, where it has been banned. The Truth Truck is a large panel truck professionally outfitted with billboard-sized graphic abortion images and other pro-life messages.


Newman had repeatedly parked the Truth Truck in the neighborhood of Carrie Klaege, who works as the office manager for Women's Health Care Services, a late-term abortion mill owned by the infamous George Tiller, who is known in pro-life circles as "Tiller the Killer." Newman was contacted by the city building inspector who threatened to impound the Truth Truck then told Newman to "take the truck and never come back."


Refusing to bow to threats and intimidation, Newman returned to Bel Aire and was arrested Thursday on a misdemeanor building code violation that bans portable signs from the public streets in this up-scale suburb of Wichita.


In an outrageous act of contempt for the First Amendment, Bel Aire City Attorney Lee E. Parker ruled that the signs on the truck were in violation of City Ordinance 280 7.102L, a building code that bans the use of signs that are "calculated to attract the attention of the public." Although the ordinance mentions a long list of exemptions to the ordinance, apparently the exercise of the Constitutional Right to Freedom of Speech was not one of them.
(snip/...)

~~~~ link ~~~~

[Loonman]

1. Nice

Troy Newman is a wad.

[Judi Lynn]

6. I went to google to see if I could find his photo

Found some.

They are posted at a site which looks like the kind of arrangement followed by the "pro-life" extremists, as it gives cell phone, license #, etc.

http://www.maggotpunks.com/antis/files/017.html

[havocmom]

2. How do these pro-graphic folks feel about community standard ponography

laws? Can someone put up a truck painted with graphic illustrations of what some people find sexually stimulating and subject everyone around them to their First Amendment exercise? No, they cannot. It violates community standards. Case closed.

[enki23]

3. who in hell wrote this piece?

the writing is amazingly unprofessional.

edit: now i know why. us newswire looks to be a religious right front. check out some of their other lovely headlines:

"Speaker Hastert Remembers Dr. Martin Luther King "
if that doesn't make you wanna cover your head and scream...

"Women Gather to Speak Out on Abortion; Abortion Hurts Women, Says Silent No More"

"National Priests' Group Confident that Roe Will Fall"

"Study: Every Democrat Presidential Candidate's Platform Would Boost Budget Deficits"

whence comes the bright idea come that this was a "news" source?

[NashVegas]

5. On Closer Look

The story was found in the "press releases" section of Yahoo's navigation.

Hmmmmm...

[Judi Lynn]

7. I looked up "Bel Aire" in google

It's in the same county with Wichita, Kansas, which has had some goddawful skirmishes with these people.

Maybe I can find out more.

Sorry for the "kwality" of the piece. It does look strange, doesn't it?

I DO think the news that he's in trouble with Bel Aire is signifigant.

[damnraddem]

15. Bel Aire is a little suburb.

The attraction for the anti-choice crowd was apparently that a Tiller staff member lives there. Tiller is one of the few docs in the US who does 3rd trimester abortions, so he takes a lot of flak -- literally, in that he was shot by an anti-choice nutcase a few years ago. His outfit is also the last abortion provider left in the area -- others were driven out of business by anti-choice tactics over the years.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Izzatso? Good grief. He's the doc they shot.

I have heard about this, didn't make the connection.

So now they've hunkered down in Bel Aire...... They are vicious psychopaths.

I think Bel Aire is wise to shut their giant truck plastered with images of aborted fetuses out, and off their streets. They apparently believed since Bel Aire is a small suburb, it wouldn't have the muscle to defend itself.

Thanks for the information.

[GinaMaria]

12. I noticed the language in

the article was really slanted. Thanks for doing the research.

[0rganism]

18. At first I thought it was just the usual fair & balanced AP crap...

...but then they bothered to mention a potential free speech issue. That's what tipped me off that this couldn't be AP. Still, a reasonably lifelike facscimile...

Curse the liberal media! We hates it, my precious.

(j/k)

[NashVegas]

4. So Now Yahoo is Putting Up Press Releases and Calling it News?

To: National Desk

Contact: Troy Newman, 316-683-6790 or 316-841-1700 (mobile), or Cheryl Sullenger, 316-634-1037 or 619-277-0725 (mobile), both of Operation Rescue West, http://www.operationrescue.org

....

a late-term abortion mill owned by the infamous George Tiller, who is known in pro-life circles as "Tiller the Killer."

...

In an outrageous act of contempt for the First Amendment, Bel Aire City

I guess someone needs to write them and ask why their editors are so lazy.

[Judi Lynn]

8. You won't believe this one!

A burst of brilliance from "Troy Newman," the President of this mess:

6-February-2002 -- P

'DEAD' CHILDREN OF FORMER OLYMPIANS TO SPEAK AT WINTER GAMES
SALT LAKE CITY, - -- Female Olympians routinely get pregnant 2-3 months prior to competition to get an added edge over the competition, according to research by Operation Rescue West.

The pregnancy changes the woman's physiology, causing a strengthening the muscle tissue and an extra "boost" of oxygen to the athlete's blood. Then, according to Operation Rescue West, just two weeks before competition, the baby is killed by abortion but the physical benefits linger, increasing the athlete's ability to perform. This process is known as "blood-doping."

"Women around the globe repeat this cycle of pregnancy and abortion in order to further their careers. Olympic 'heroines' are routinely built on the bloody foundation of the aborted bodies of their own pre-born sons and daughters," said Troy Newman, director, Operation Rescue West.

"Beginning on Friday morning and lasting through the ceremonies, the bodies of dead Olympian children will "speak" from the grave. Pictures with bodies of aborted children will cover the sides of Operation Rescue West's Truth Truck. These babies will declare the shame of abortion for the whole world to see," Newman said.
(snip/...)

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=23576

Tiny Bel Aire, Ks. has a population of 6,014.
http://www.belaireks.org/

They STILL have the courage to tell this thug where to put his "Truth Truck."

[KCDem]

10. I find that hard to believe

I've had two kids, and, with both pregnancies, I've been MISERABLY sick in the first trimester. My athletic capabilities early in pregnancy are ZILCH. This Newman guy sounds like a real wad.

[GinaMaria]

13. Not to mention that 'women' athletes

in the Olympics are not women at all, but little girls, gymnastics, skating. Their bodies don't look formed enough to even get pregnant.

This sounds really wacked.

[yellowcanine]

11. This tells you all you need to know about Troy Newman

Operation Rescue and others of their ilk have this notion that women are as casual about getting pregnant and having abortions as getting their nails done. Anybody who has actually had an abortion or knows a woman who has had one knows this is crap. The number of women who would treat this as casually as Newman suggests is extremely small and may be zero. It is easy to make assertions like this without bothering to cite any relevant and accurate data to back it up. Newman is a freak.

[madrchsod]

9. my friends wife

needed his services but the insurance company wouldn`t pay. she had a severely deformed baby that had very little brain function. the baby could have threaten her life so after a month the doctors decided to "force" delivery or abort the baby. they had to wait until they could justify the baby was dead. it`s it nice that these people can pass medical judgments using the "word of god"?

[Voltaire99]

19. That's appalling...

...that her life should be put at risk for a brain-dead lump of flesh!

[David__77]

14. I don't think I could support this ordinance.

Could pictures of victims of the war against Iraq also be banned? This could open the way to a high degree of suppression of speech. I do not agree with this speech, but I think that a mass movement for abortion rights and to oppose right-wing terror is the solution, not relying on courts to stifle opponents.

[damnraddem]

17. That's the question that needed asking.

Although, as one poster noted, the truck might qualify under anti-pornography standards. Still, I'm worried about governments that have the ability to ban 'signs calculated to draw public interest.'

[Dookus]

20. It's not the first...

I was a clinic defender in San Mateo County, CA, and the city of Menlo Park passed an ordinance controlling the size of signs people could post on public streets. This was in response to one guy who used to plaster his station wagon with 5' tall posters of late-term abortions.

I spoke in favor of the ordinance at the City Council. It was later overturned by the courts, and the city was forced to pay the asshat a decent amount of money.

[SoCalDem]

21. Here he is getting arrested