Compelling Government Interest

The ruling by a Federal District judge that the government can't require graphic images on cigarette packs is a really bizarre application of the First Amendment.  The warnings are considered "compelled speech."  But the right of the government to compel speech is already recognized; the written warnings that have existed for years, and which this ruling doesn't touch, are compelled speech.  It comes down to the images themselves.

One of the distinctions the judge makes is between "facts" and graphic images designed to cause an emotional response in potential consumers.  It seems an absurd distinction, first, because the harm caused by cigarettes is scientifically factual, and a graphic image of a tracheotomy that was necessitated by smoking is also factual.  It also seems to suggest that people can't have emotional reactions of disgust to simple "facts" irrespective of images.

The judge also made the point that the graphic warnings were part of a government program to discourage smoking and were intended to "disgust the consumer" in order to prevent them from purchasing a legal product, and he denied a compelling government interest.  If public health isn't a compelling government interest, what is?  How about the economic interest that derives from the money spent on Medicare and Medicaid?

The really discouraging aspect of this ruling, or this entire case, escaped my attention when I first read it this morning.  The lawyer for the tobacco industry in this case was Floyd Abrams, probably the most respected First Amendment lawyer in the country, and someone whose name alone can normally make me believe in his cause.  In this case, not.

If the government cannot try to discourage people from engaging in the legal activity of smoking by forcing them to see disgusting graphic images, and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, then I assume we will see the overturning of all the state laws forcing women to have ultrasounds performed prior to having an abortion.  These forced procedures (in cases of vaginal ultrasounds amounting to virtual rape) are nothing more than attempts to dissuade women from engaging in a legal activity, as part of the states' anti-abortion campaign.  Where is the state's compelling interest in discouraging abortions?

The good news is that soon I hope to have some English students and will have less time for these diatribes.