Should Anti-Abortion Advertising be Banned?

[DC Al Fine]

Some months ago, a group called "Signs for Life" started buying bus shelter and billboard ads in my city. They look like this.



Recently, I was contacted by a friend of a friend who's trying to get a petition signed in an attempt to ban signs like this in my municipality. The petition is accompanied by an eassay and can be read here.

I'm sure everyone knows how I feel about this, so I'll refrain from posting a rant for now. I'll just leave this choice quote from the essay

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It's an interesting peek into the reasoning of a certain segment of the pro-choice movement. What do you think?

[DC Al Fine]

No. Government shouldn't be regulating private advertising, period.

Ugh.  Absolutely no thought given...

That brings up a good point.  There is no private advertising in a sense.  The point of advertising is to make a message as public as possible.  To do that, advertising needs a public medium to grab people's eyeballs; the frontage of a public roadway, the public airwaves, public transit, etc.  If advertising appears in those collectively held areas, we can insist on a few modest regulations and fees. 

Yeah I think each individual person should have as many rights as possible.  But I don't think other people's rights should trample over mine with absolutely no regard.  It's like smoking in planes and restaurants.  Just because I have to travel for work and eat in restaurants doesn't mean I should have my cancer risk elevated just because someone else doesn't care about their health.  Smoke at home and look at obscene or disturbing advertising at home.  Don't plaster it where the rest of us are just trying to go about our day.

I think that's a fair point.

What's wrong with the case at hand is that its near impossible to interpret the signs as obscene. They're all variations of "Look at this cute baby, don't have an abortion". The author of the petition wants them removed because apparently women have the right to not feel bad about their decisions. Apparently anti-smoking and debt counselling ads are out the window. What complaints like this amount to is not a legitimate case about public standards, it's a case of a particular viewpoint trying to silencing contrary opinions.