HONOLULU — A federal appeals court yesterday upheld Honolulu's ban on aerial advertising, rejecting an anti-abortion group's argument that its free-speech rights were violated when it was prohibited from flying banners picturing aborted fetuses over crowded Waikiki beaches.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the city's ordinance did not violate the First Amendment and was a "reasonable and viewpoint neutral restriction on speech in a nonpublic forum." The group has other means of conveying its message, the judges said.

"Preservation of the visual beauty of Honolulu's coastal and scenic areas is of paramount importance," the court said.

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform said it expected to lose in the "liberal" lower courts and would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

Gregg Cunningham, director of the Orange County, Calif.-based group, said the First Amendment had suffered "a grievous blow."

"If the environmental groups and political leftists who are trying to suppress the truth about abortion think we're going to go away because we lost two cases that we fully expected to lose, they're in for a rude awakening," he said.

The decision affirmed an earlier ruling by the U.S. District Court and could open the way for other cities to join Honolulu in prohibiting banners towed by aircraft.

Hawaii has no billboards or other prominent outdoor advertising, and murals of whales and the ocean adorn the sides of buildings. The city banned aerial advertising in 1978.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann and environmentalists applauded the decision, saying it would help preserve Hawaii's natural beauty and tourist industry.

Mary Steiner, head of the Outdoor Circle, which supported the city's case, said Hawaii's environment and scenery were special and needed to be protected.

"To blight it with signs being pulled overhead in the sky really does detract from the number-one industry we're trying to sell," she said.

Cunningham said it was "perverted" to care more about the scenery than "children being tortured to death."

The court's opinion, written by Judge M. Margaret McKeown, said banner-towing is "neither a common means of speaking nor a distinct and traditionally important form of expression."

Contrary to the court's opinion, Cunningham said, the group does not have alternative methods to advertise because it has been "shut out" by mainstream media, which often publishes graphic images from wars and natural disasters but never the results of abortions.

The anti-abortion group sued the city in 2003, saying it had a right to fly over Waikiki's crowded beaches 100-foot-long banners displaying graphic images of aborted fetuses, as it has in other cities, to promote its anti-abortion message. It already uses trucks around Honolulu plastered with giant photos of bloodied fetuses.

The group wants to fly banners in Hawaii to reach an international audience, as it does in other tourist-populated areas such as Florida.

"The people who are playing this game with the First Amendment in Hawaii are inviting a level of attention from us that they are going to come to regret," Cunningham said. "If we do lose this battle long term, I'm going to absolutely swamp the state of Hawaii with our trucks and you're not going to be able to cross the street without seeing one."

He said horrific images similar to those published during the civil rights movement were needed for social reform in the U.S.

"As long as people keep killing these babies, we're going to continue showing them," Cunningham said.