is freedom of speech a legit freedom?

           I just read this article, Texas: Judge Halts an Abortion Requirement (published by the New York Times), about a lawsuit in Texas over a law that was going to be passed regarding abortion. This law "[required] a doctor to perform a sonogram before an abortion." On its way to be approved on September 1, 2011, Judge Sam Sparks of Austin, Texas, argued that this law was in violation of the First Amendment. His reasoning was that doctors were being violated of their freedom of speech by being asked to show women a sonogram of their living, breathing fetus, which might change their choice in abortion. Even further, this law required women who were pregnant because of a sexual assault to sign a form to allow the doctor to perform a sonogram. Judge Sparks ruled that “the state cannot compel a woman to disclose such private information that she may not even wish to tell the police.”

Over this past week in class, we rigorously discussed where the line of freedom of speech is drawn. Cases we covered included Tinker vs. Des Moines, Morse vs. Frederick and Bethel School Dist. No. 403 vs. Fraser. While these cases argued over rights of speech in a school setting, unlike the case of an abortion, the same question is still asked; where do we draw the line of what is freedom of speech and what isn’t? The truth is: you really can’t. The First Amendment of the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” Now some people may say, well abortion isn’t a form of speech—it is an action. But as we discovered in class, some actions we take are just another way of speaking out loud. For example, in the case of Tinker vs. Des Moines, Mary Beth and John Tinker wore black armbands to their public school to showcase their disagreement with the Vietnam War. The school made a rule that no students were allowed to wear these black armbands, and if they did wear them and refused to remove them, they would be suspended from school. When the Tinker kids were suspended for refusing to remove their armbands at school, their father filed suit. The court held that the school policy was in violation of the First Amendment.

I agree completely with the decision of the court. I also agree with Judge Sparks that putting the law into action would be unconstitutional. A doctor is being completely violated if he is being required to show a patient something he does not thing is right or necessary. As a doctor, he knows his patients well and would be going against any patient-doctor trust by following through with this law. Also, if a woman has made the decision to have an abortion, she should not be forced to witness the living and breathing fetus inside her. The guilt that would come with that is a complete injustice to her free right of choice between pro-life or pro-abortion.