The Supreme Court justices unanimously upheld First Amendment rights Thursday when they cast down a 2007 Massachusetts law that put 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics.
The law made it a crime in the state for individuals to stand on public ways or sidewalks within 35 feet of an entrance to any place, save hospitals, performing abortions. Its intention was to ensure public safety outside these clinics and prevent demonstrators from harassing patients or clinic staff.
According to the syllabus released with the opinion on McCullen v. Coakley, the court concluded that “[the buffer zones] impose serious burdens on petitioners’ speech, depriving them of their two primary methods of communicating with arriving patients: close, personal conversations and distribution of literature.”
The law, the justices concluded, violated the right to free speech.
“Petitioners wish to converse with their fellow citizens about an important subject on the public streets and sidewalks — sites that have hosted discussions about the issues of the day throughout history,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts.
He asserted that the state of Massachusetts “pursued [public safety] interests by the extreme step of closing a substantial portion of a traditional public forum to all speakers.”
This marks a rare moment at which the liberal and conservative justices are in sound agreement, and thus demonstrates the seriousness with which the court considers threats to the First Amendment.
“Today’s ruling means I can offer loving help to a woman who wants it, and neither of us will go to jail for the discussion,” said 77-year-old Eleanor McCullen, one of the demonstrators who challenged the law. “I am delighted and thankful to God that the court has protected my right to engage in kind, hopeful discussions with women who feel they have nowhere else to turn.”
