American Coalition of Life Activists

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The American Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA) was a pro-life activist group that was the subject of controversy for its series of Wanted-style posters.

During a 1995 meeting, the group unveiled a "wanted" poster that listed the names and addresses of a "Deadly Dozen" abortion providers. The poster accused them of "crimes against humanity" and offered a $5,000 reward for the "arrest, conviction and revocation of license to practice medicine" of these physicians. The poster was published in Life Advocate magazine. A second poster targeted a specific person, Dr. Robert Crist, offered a reward for persuading him "to turn from his child killing," and included his name, address, and photo.

In 1996 it revealed its "Nuremberg Files" which included dossiers on abortion providers, politicians, judges, clinic employees and other abortion rights supporters. The ACLA claimed that these dossiers could be used for trials for "crimes against humanity" when the nation's laws changed to prohibit abortion. Neal Horsley, an activist, published the information on his website. His website greyed the names of those injured and crossed out the names of those killed by anti-abortion activists.

Although the posters and website did not contain any specific threat, Planned Parenthood successfully sued the ACLA and was awarded more than $100 million by a jury. The ACLA appealed the verdict on First Amendment grounds, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sustained the verdict. Since similar posters had preceded clinic violence on the past, the Court found that a reasonable person would interpret the website as an intent to harm or assault those named as targets. ^[1]