'Choose Life' Message Protected in Texas

The ACLJ has achieved an important pro-life victory in a free speech case coming out of the State of Texas.

For several years, our clients Brookes Baker and Fred Griffith, as well as several others, have been demonstrating outside an abortion clinic in White Settlement, Texas.  With their signs in hand, they have been coming to the clinic, day after day, in rain and sun, for one and only reason: to persuade others to Choose Life.

Earlier this year, just as the group was putting away their signs for the day, city officials and police officers with White Settlement paid the demonstrators a visit outside the clinic.  The officials told the group that unless they ceased using their signs in the future they would be issued citations for violating a city ordinance prohibiting the use of portable signs.

We acted immediately. We sent a demand letter to the City Attorney and asked that White Settlement and its agents not interfere with the First Amendment rights of our clients, Brookes Baker and Fred Griffiths, to picket on public property outside the clinic.

When our demand to the City was not answered, we filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.  Suffice it to say, the lawsuit got the attention of the City.

I am pleased to announce that, through a settlement agreement executed by the parties, the City has agreed to no longer interfere with the free speech rights of our clients.  Brookes and Fred are now free to demonstrate with their signs just as they had before the City officials told them to stop.

This is not just a victory for the ACLJ or our clients.  It is not just a vindication of one of our most cherished constitutional liberties. 

It is a victory for those women visiting the White Settlement clinic who need to hear that simple but profound message: Choose Life.