MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment’s free speech provision should have been protected an anti-abortion protester outside a Planned Parenthood office in Blair. Brian Aish, now 56, had been ordered by a Trempealeau County judge to stay away from the office in 2020. Aish had said bad things would happen to the nurse or her family if she didn’t quit. She took his statements a threat. Aish appealed the judge’s injunction. Aish noted that his comment were made from a public sidewalk and thereby protected as free speech. The state Supreme Court agreed 4-3. Triggering the case was the part-time presence of Nancy Kindschy, a nurse, at the Blair office She since has retired. The office has closed. Beginning in 2014 Aish drove off and on to Blair from his home in Black River Falls in the next county. He carried placards quoting Bible verses and preached his anti-abortion beliefs. In 2019 he notched up his protests by directing comments that Kindschy personally. The Court ruled that predicting “bad things” was too vague to be an imminent threat.
Verbatim
Justice Rebecca Bradley, in a concurring majority opinion: “Aish’s statements could not be true threats of violence because he disclaimed any desire for violence to befall Kindschy.”
Blair profile
This Trempealeau County town of 1,3o0 was founded in the 1850s for milling. The early millpond, Lake Henry, is on the Trempealeau River. The area is mostly Lutheran, dating to Norwegian settlers, and Catholic, dating to a later wave of German immigrants. Congregations: Blair Lutheran, St. Ansgar Catholic.
Catholic cause
Aish’s appeal was sponsored by the Thomas More Society, a Chicag0-based law firm that takes up anti-abortion Catholic causes. The firm regards itself as important in dialogue on culture war issues.