Jefferson demonstrators infringe on no one

Dear editor, I noticed a startling disconnect between Iris Barrie’s June 19 letter calling for the suppression of speech against abortion and the headline over it: “Demonstrators infringe on others’ rights.”

Despite misrepresenting the character and activities of anti-abortion protesters in Napa, Barrie failed to mention a single way in which they infringed on others’ rights. The pro-lifers’ messages are not in fact intimidating. They don’t contain such sentiments as, “You will go to hell if you support baby-killing!” Even if they did, however, they would not be infringing on the rights of clinic patrons or passersby. There is no right to be free of the free speech of others.

And, come to think of it, there couldn’t be. Such a “right” would be a complete negation of the actual right to free speech.

Barrie suggests that the free speech rights of pro-lifers need to be denied so that no one goes nuts and murders an abortionist. The fact is that far more violence in this country is associated with domestic disputes than with public protest on any issue. According to Barrie’s mildewed logic, we’d be well advised to outlaw marriage and cohabitation. If men and women didn’t live to together, all this domestic violence wouldn’t occur.

Of course, shutting down public protest is a far more practical possibility than outlawing cohabitation. The first modern government to legalize abortion — the Soviet Union, under Lenin, in 1920 — shut down lots of public protest over the years. But in these United States, we have a pesky little thing called the First Amendment.

Tom Riley / Napa

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