Court Opinion

ID: 9686164
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:31:48.583257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:15.577870
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I disagree with that portion of the majority opinion which concludes that “a reasonable interpretation of the newspaper advertisements supports the trial court’s findings” that the Help Clinic violated the preliminary injunction. Insofar as the advertisement in the Fargo Forum quoted at footnote 6 of the majority opinion is concerned, the conclusion of the majority may lead one to believe that if a woman is pregnant and doesn’t want to be, the only *636alternative is an abortion. I reject that implication. Furthermore, that advertisement contains at the bottom the words “Pro-Life.” Even the most uninterested are by now aware that this labels a person or organization as anti-abortion. A “reasonable” interpretation of this particular advertisement would be that the group did not perform abortions.
Furthermore, it is difficult to determine how much of the trial judge’s conclusion was based on the failure of the Help Clinic to include in their advertisements using the term “abortion,” a statement that the Clinic does not perform abortions, which requirement this court struck from the preliminary injunction in Fargo Women’s Health Organization v. Larson, 381 N.W.2d 176 (N.D.1986). Insofar as the trial judge’s perspective of the advertisements as being false and deceptive and in violation of the preliminary injunction may be based on that failure, we should not affirm as “reasonable” the trial court’s interpretation of the newspaper advertisements.
I also am concerned with the implications of footnote 8 in the majority opinion. Although the Help Clinic’s advertisements are considered “commercial” speech and therefore not entitled to the “full panoply of protection under the First Amendment as do other forms of protected speech” [Fargo Women’s Health Organization v. Larson, supra, at page 180], they are nevertheless entitled to First Amendment protection. However, the United States Supreme Court appears to hold that while one is free to violate an unconstitutional statute restricting free speech, one is not free to violate the same words when written as a court injunction. See Rotunda, Nowak & Young, Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure, Sec. 20.16; Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 89 S.Ct. 935, 22 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969); Walker v. Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307, 87 S.Ct. 1824, 18 L.Ed.2d 1210 (1967).
I must, however, agree with the majority that the taped telephone conversations would lead others to believe that the Women’s Help Clinic performed abortions or provided financial assistance for abortions. Regardless of how reprehensible the defendants find abortion, the use of “tricks” or fraud and intentionally misleading statements cannot be justified in the campaign to oppose abortion. Insofar as there is sufficient evidence in the taped conversations to prove that, when considered in light of the preliminary injunction, the responses to questions were purposely vague and misleading, I agree with the result reached in the majority opinion.
ERICKSTAD, C.J., concurs.