Bitter ex-boyfriend puts up billboard of ghost baby, accuses ex of abortion
By Kelly BourdetJune 7th, 2011, 10:30 amComments (49)
Thirty-five-year-old Greg Fultz of Alamogordo, New Mexico has rented a billboard in the main thoroughfare of the town accusing his ex-girlfriend of aborting their unborn child. The sign depicts Fultz holding the outline of an infant with text beneath reading, "This Would Have Been A Picture Of My Two-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child!" Needless to say, his ex-girlfriend was less than charmed and has taken him to court for both harassment and violation of privacy.
While no one is disputing that this is a dick move, underwritten, no doubt, by creepy anti-choice organizations, Fultz maintains that he's got every right to publicly shame his ex to bring attention to his point of view. To support his right to "very unpopular offensive speech," he relies on the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of Westboro Baptist Church and their right to protest funerals of fallen soldiers. Though it seems, to my rational mind, like aligning yourself WBC might be the first sign you're on the wrong path.
The billboard does raise many questions regarding protection of free speech and how it must be balanced with protection of individual privacy. After all, the right to choice established in Roe v. Wade was really just an extension of a women's implied constitutional right to privacy. Is the billboard a legitimate, albeit controversial, way to draw attention to "father's rights" in the abortion debate? Or is it simply a large-scale version of slut-shaming?
Commentarium (49 Comments)
If something is factually true, I have a hard time prohibiting it. The woman is not even named or pictured, per the story. People don't have the right to live a stress free life. I wouldn't want to be her, but I wouldn't want to live in a world where someone taking offense is a reason to curtail speech, either.
Agreed. As an aside, the tone of this article seems absurdly biased, especially considering that the facts of the situation pretty clearly paint the picture of a total douchebag ex-boyfriend. "A large scale version of slut-shaming?" How? No one's sexuality or promiscuity is in any way on trail, nor is any particular individual identified.
I'm only a law student, but this seems to me to be a public disclosure of private facts issue.
The above commenter is right. Truth is not a defense against the public disclosure of private information.
But you can legally disclose private facts about yourself.
@guestest - Keep studying. Nothing here qualifies as a private fact.
It's awful, and the guy's a dick, but he's within his rights. "Legal" and "right" aren't always the same thing.
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
-- Noam Chomsky
No, he is not. Defamation is not the same as freedom of expression.
Having read a different article about this, I agree with you about defamation. Based on what is in this article, I couldn't have made that judgment.
How is the woman defamed?
It's worth mentioning that she claims she in fact had a miscarriage, not an abortion. That might moot the whole free speech vs. privacy debate, since free speech is much less protective when the speech is false.
It bothers me when anybody splits their infinitives. It bothers me even more when it's a sanctimonious right-to-lifer on a billboard. Also, I don't agree that the billboard is factually true. Had he said this "possibly could have been" instead of "would have been," and said "abort a fetus" instead of "kill our child," I might agree with rm.
Fuck, I knew there was a reason I was having issues with the grammar of this poster but I couldn't pick it out. Thank you.
Also, guy's a douche etc.
There is nothing wrong with splitting infinitives, unless you believe that English should follow Latin grammar.
I know it's not technically incorrect, but it still bugs me. I use it as a way to identify under-educated people. Then again I'm kind of stuck up.
So maybe I should reconsider my billboard: A picture of me in a mansion with cash and bling all around, saying "this would have been me if my ex-girlfriend aborted and I didn't have to pay child support."
I will donate $10 to your kickstarter for this.
I kind of think that this asshole has a tiny dick. She should tell him the baby wasn't his.
Providing his position that it was an abortion is true he is probably legally within his rights. That does not mean it is ethically sound. Based on his choice to publicly air private matters I think she made the right choice to continue his bloodline. One wonders what other behaviors he may have exhibited that caused her to not tie herself to him with a child.
If I were that ugly I would not put a billboard of myself up anywhere.
Also, what's up with his hair?
On the bright side, she is not with this waste-of-billboard-space, really challenged-in-the-looks-department jerk anymore. Good for her!
Somebody break the news to him that the baby wasn't his. You can tell in the picture it would have been black!
Anti-choice? Would the pro-choice people like to be referred to as anti-life?
We are, all the time.
pro-life is the nice way of saying anti-choice because they literally want no one to have abortions (or at least in elective abortions) which restricts those women's rights to their own body. But, pro-choice doesn't at all mean one -wants- abortions to happen in all cases when the fetus is unplanned. It just means you think a woman should have the right to abort the fetus as just one of the options she can have, other options include giving the baby, when born, up to adoption or foster care. So, pro-choice =/= anti-life.
But, yur just gonna do that thing where you say I am using fancy rhetoric word semantics to split hairs rather than actually listen.
By your use of "slut-shaming," are you insinuating that getting pregnant means a woman is a slut? I am surprised that as female you would use such a word when she had as much sex with this jerk as he did with her. Talk about double standard.
I figured she considered it slut-shaming because only sluts get abortions. Then we can keep having the sex without the responsibility/consequences. Or something? I don't know.
Obviously we just want to keep having sex and abortions and sex and abortions. We just CANNOT keep ourselves from wanting to have/having sex with these really charming attractive men (like dude above). Also, we're blind, deaf and dumb.
Wow. You people are really awful for some of the stuff you've said. But I'm sure you don't care,so neither do I.
Umn... by presenting this picture of his entirely un-studly self, he's strongly suggested the identity of his former girlfriend, at least, to the people who know her well enough to actually affect her. Her friends, family, possibly even boss and/or coworkers are clued in about some pregnancy stuff that's none of their business, which is made worse by the dispute over what actually happened in the pregnancy (his abortion claim, her claim of miscarriage). This could result in serious consequences for the woman, including, perhaps, losing her job if her boss is an anti-abortion type. This is some bullshit on the man's part.
Worse than that, actually. The asshole who put up the billboard created the name of his "organization" by way of backronym from his ex's name. "National Association of Needed Information" is an incomprehensibly stupid name until you realize that this was the best this jacktard could come up with to spell "Nani". On the plus side, it's his picture he posted, and letting women see what he looks like can't be good for business in the future.
Anyone who is THAT much of an a$$ doesn't deserve to be a father....and I agree, he is one FUGLY guy, how she got pregnant is beyond me!
I bet you for the price of that billboard he could have flown to Thailand and taken a little baby. Some people just don't allocate their funds well.
It was probably for the better. Between that hair, shirt and his obvious, "Rape Face," that baby would have been figuratively and literally, "Fucked."
Why is "fathers rights" in quotes? This whole premise that the mother has all the choice and the father none is just so much feminazi BS.
Are you positive?
Are you HIV positive?
I'd be all for fathers' rights if the father was able to choose to risk his life (literally) to carry and deliver the baby, and the woman's could choose responsibility as minimal as making 18 years of child support payments.
Hey MRAGH, fathers will have rights when they carry the baby. You should be mad at your god, not the women.
You shouldn't be having this conversation because that means you're not in the kitchen.
You can always tell an idiot by his use of the word "feminazi."
And also by his identification with the billboardist. Ew.
@MRAGH - +1, completely correct.
That black baby is obviously not his.
It's Steve Jobs'.
Could be worse. If it were Bill Gates', it would have had the blue screen of SIDS.
i don't identify with the billboardist at all. but i do disagree that the father has zero say in any abortion decision. oh, and there is no god.
No Uterus = No Opinion (on what to do with anybody else's uterus). Memorize it, MRAGH.
MRAGH, no offense, but I have to agree that you are missing something basic here. If you're not carrying the baby, then you have no say. None. Your (or the father's) say was in deciding to have sex or not. After that, the mother has all the choice.
@SimpleEquation - How silly.