Pro-life organization Live Action is refusing to comply with censorship demands from pro-abortion advocates. Attorneys declared, “The answer is ‘No,'” in response to calls that the group delete years of reporting and commentary on abortion.
Amplify Legal, which is representing 13 abortion advocates, sent a cease-and-desist letter claiming Live Action has published false and defamatory stories about their clients and has defamed women who have chosen to abort their babies. The 13 abortion organizations had previously publicly aired personal stories of abortion—which became news coverage content for Live Action News, a division of the organization that publishes stories centered on abortion from a pro-life viewpoint.
Amplify Legal claimed in their letter that the outlet “has repeatedly written about our clients intentionally ‘killing’ their babies.”
“Live Action News’s pervasive pattern of publishing false and defamatory statements condemning our clients is made clear in hundreds of articles, YouTube videos, and social media posts,” they claimed.
Amplify Legal, which is a litigation arm of the pro-abortion group Abortion in America, is demanding that Live Action remove those published articles and retract statements in which they describe abortion as “killing” preborn children. Abortion in America was founded by the former president of Planned Parenthood, the late Cecile Richards, and Amplify Legal is connected to the Hopewell Fund, a project of George Soros.
The Thomas More Society is representing Live Action and is arguing that their editorial content is constitutionally protected speech.
Peter Breen, Thomas More Society’s executive vice president and head of litigation, called the letter “a meritless threat aimed at silencing Live Action’s pro-life speech, not winning a lawsuit.”
“The abortion advocacy group behind this letter could not cite a single case supporting its brazen attempt to prevent pro-life advocates from calling abortion what it is—‘killing’—and even the US Supreme Court has used the term in the context of abortion,” Breen said. “We’re proud to defend Live Action’s reporting and its right to speak freely and clearly on the most contentious social issue of our time.
In a public letter, Live Action said they “will not cease reporting on abortion.”
“It will not desist from expressing the view—shared by tens of millions of Americans and by the pro-life movement your clients have made careers of publicly opposing—that abortion takes the life of a living human being and is accurately described as ‘killing,’” the letter said. “Live Action will not delete its archive, will not retract protected opinion, and will not submit its future coverage of public figures, public lawsuits, public convention speeches, and public political campaigns to your pre-clearance.”
Lila Rose, Live Action founder and president, released a public statement in response to the letter, arguing that they “know that controlling the language is essential to making abortion easier to accept” because “people intuitively understand that abortion kills a child and that every baby deserves a chance at life.”
“Our journalism gives a voice to children in the womb who cannot speak for themselves and reports the truth about abortion and the abortion industry,” Rose said. “We will not be pressured into using language that hides what abortion does or makes the killing of a preborn child easier to accept. We are fighting for a culture and legal system that respects every human life and refuses to treat the sick, disabled, or unborn as disposable. Legal threats against our First Amendment right to speak will not change that mission. Threats will not stop us from calling abortion what it is or from fighting for the right of every child to live. We will keep fighting, and we will win.”
