Court Opinion

ID: 9578337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:44:15.965899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:09.789640
License: Public Domain

I’Anson and Cochran, JJ.,
dissenting.
We dissent. We conclude that § 18.1-63 is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. In our view it is unnecessary to decide whether the advertisement is “commercial” in a constitutional sense. See New *199York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). In any event Bigelow has standing to challenge as overbroad the criminal statute under which he was convicted. Owens v. Commonwealth, 211 Va. 633, 179 S.E.2d 477 (1971). The language of the statute does not purport to regulate commercial advertising only but sweeps within its scope any person who “encourage[s] or prompt[s] the procuring of an abortion” by “publication, lecture, advertisement ... or in any other manner.” For this reason Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622 (1951), a decision which upheld the validity of an ordinance which regulated the conduct of door-to-door solicitors rather than their freedom of speech, is inapposite here. Section 18.1-63 seeks to limit freedom of speech in a vague and impermissibly broad manner. Moreover, no distinction is made between legal and illegal abortions (an oversight recently remedied by amendment).
We would reverse the conviction.