Despite having their own 100-foot buffer zone of protection at the Court, the U.S. Supreme Court Justices unanimously struck down Massachusetts’ state-wide 35-foot buffer around reproductive healthcare clinics in this country with their McCullen v Coakley decision today.
They have just announced that it is ‘Open Season’ on reproductive healthcare clinics in this country.
According to SCOTUS blog, where the decision was being reported live, the issue is about restricting free speech in public spaces: “A state can go beyond narrow laws that block obstructions to clinics, and more broadly ban abortion protests, only if it builds a record showing that the narrower measures don’t work.” (More at scotusblog.com)
I am a long-time clinic defense escort volunteer in cities from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York. The idea that the people standing outside clinics screaming and yelling, chasing people into the streets, surrounding medical transport vehicles and threatening staff are there for First Amendment expression reasons would be laughable if the potential for violence wasn’t so real. They show up to intimidate patients and companions and terrorize communities.
More than 300 acts of violence were committed against reproductive healthcare clinics just between 2010 and 2012. That includes eight murders and seventeen attempted murders since 1991. More than 80% of facilities have called the police and National Abortion Federation members overwhelmingly report that buffer zones prevent violence and make staff and patients feel safer.
Apparently intimidation and terrorizing those seeking legal medical procedures is now an important First Amendment expression of “free speech”, according to the Supreme Court Justices. The Court has weighed the safety of healthcare providers and American citizens against potential violence and has decided they aren’t worried…
I invite them to visit a clinic on a Saturday morning — the most heavily protested day — or follow the escorts reporting on social media via #ProtectTheZone. Though, perhaps, they could have simply gone with Justice Scalia’s wife, who is an outspoken, so-called “sidewalk counselor”. No conflict of interest there for the un-recused, un-apologetic Justice.
While the decision does not automatically nullify existing buffer zones, it does put most of them at risk. If an ordinance or law is not specifically tailored to a clinic — think restraining order-style — there is a good chance a challenge from well-funded groups like Americans United For Life and the Pro-Life Action League will be heard and could jeopardize the small amount of protections some clinics are currently afforded.
Today’s decision [PDF] doesn’t reference Hill v. Colorado, which is bizarre considering that that buffer was the first to be enacted and first to be challenged (and upheld). Perhaps they didn’t want to be quoted specifically referencing a 100-foot buffer.
As someone who has stood as a physical barrier between patients and shrieking picketers with bullhorns and graphic signs (as well as small babies made out of chocolate — if you eat, you can’t undergo anesthesia), this decision terrifies me. One part in particular is especially troubling: “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,” the Court wrote. “But here the Commonwealth has pursued those interests by the extreme step of closing a substantial portion of a traditional public forum to all speakers. It has done so without seriously addressing the problem through alternatives that leave the forum open for its time-honored purposes.”
My doctor’s office is not a public forum for you to air your political grievances. Full stop.
If polling places — where presumably political action is occurring — can have buffer zones, usually much larger than the 35-feet now prohibited by SCOTUS in Massachusetts, my doctor’s office ought to be even more protected, as we recently discussed on Brad Friedman’s KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast. I’m not advocating for polling place harassment, of course, but simply drawing focus to the ironic distinction between the private act of visiting a doctor and the democratic public act of voting. The latter act, the public one, is not a “public forum”, apparently, while the former one, a private act, now is, according to the Court.
This from Justice Roberts shows the political motivations of the conservative Justices:
They want people to be allowed up in your face as you push your way through to the door of your doctor’s office.
“Outside the buffer zones, protests can and do occur, so the law only regulates where people can stand, not what they can say,” Martha Walz, CEO of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts said during a conference call with reporters earlier this year, prior to today’s decision. “It takes about seven seconds to walk from the edge of the buffer zone to our front door. That seven seconds of not being harassed on the way to the front door makes a huge difference. … [Previously], I remember one of the protesters just screaming at me, just inches away from my face, as I was in the facility doorway. It was scary.”
What is motivating the presumed liberal Justices and champions of human rights to join with their Rightwing colleagues? We’re going to have to wait for additional opinions and smarter legal minds than mine to wade through the many pages of the decision and history.
To find out more about what happens at clinics and — if you’re so moved — to get involved in clinic defense, contact The Clinic Vest Project, where they can connect you to existing volunteer groups and/or provide you with free resources to start your own in your community.
With individual clinics now being burdened not only with fighting expensive legal battles against unconstitutional legislation, but also with petitioning municipalities to not be harassed, on-the-ground volunteers just became even more important. Standing with the clinics in your community — even if that just means calling the police to report picketers, a tactic which has improved situations in several cities — is vital. Don’t ignore the violent rhetoric coming out of the anti-choice movement; it affects our politics and has reached our Supreme Court where they seem to be drinking the “Pro-Life” movement kook-aid.
We, unfortunately, are about to watch as buffer zones are struck down across the country, leaving healthcare providers and their patients even more vulnerable to violence. The support of the community just became the only defense the U.S. Supreme Court left standing.
Katie Klabusich is a writer, reproductive rights activist and media contributor. You can find her work at KatieSpeak.com
Give it a rest. The sidewalk outside of your doctor’s office is not your doctor’s office.
“There is a good chance a challenge from well-funded groups like Americans United For Life and the Pro-Life Action League will be heard”.
Yeah, those people who disagree with you shouldn’t be heard huh…
As horrible for reproductive rights as this decision is, and has been pointed out in other discussions elsewhere, this decision could have unintended positive consequences for democratic free-expression. If there cannot be a “buffer zone” around a clinic, this theory goes, then there certainly can’t be a ban on the free expression of political dissent within a mile of a political convention, or economic conference. Ergo, “free speech zones” far, far away from the sites of the two major political party’s quadrennial presidential nominating conventions, or, say a G7 or WTO meeting, are equally unconstitutional inhibitions of the First Amendment. So, in 2016, can we expect that protests will be allowed within sight of the delegate entrances to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions? We should if the basis of this decision is taken to it’s logical conclusion. However, as we know, there is nothing logical or consistent when it comes to the rights of citizens to petition or dissent against our government.
Katie Klabusich writes:
There is nothing in the majority opinion in McCullen v. Coakley that prevents a state from enacting narrowly tailored legislation that would prevent the forms of intimidation and obstruction that Katie describes. The majority opinion, written by the Chief Justice but which was joined by the Court’s four liberal Justices, expressly recognizes that a state has a “significant governmental interest” in preventing the very things that concern Katie.
As the majority explained:
The statute went beyond prohibiting the behaviors Katie described. It prevented “normal conversation and leafleting on a public sidewalk” that would include polite “one-on-one” communications.
As one might glean from my earlier article, Sandra Fluke’s Testimony and Issues of Church and State Posed to Constitutional Democracy by Those Who Hoped to Silence Her, I am both a staunch defender of a woman’s right to choose and an adherent to the principles embodied in the First Amendment.
The majority decision in McCullen recognizes both of those issues, and, frankly, may prove a positive step forward towards challenging the draconian “free speech zones,” principally in use during the Bush regime in which public protestors were shunted into caged-in areas far away from such public events as the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
WingnutSteve whiffed again @ 2 with:
Um, Steve. As nice as it is to see you come out from under the bridge, despite your years of kinda making a fool out of yourself in comments here, I’m afraid you may have done it again.
By “heard”, the author meant, “heard” as in, a case heard by a court of law. Not heard by someone trying to receive medical care, as you suggest. You may want to go back and examine the full context of Katie’s remarks in the article above.
You’re welcome. Other than that, nice to see that you remain reliable!
I know exactly what she’s saying. My comment was sarcasm directed at the arrogance of the writer who’s seemingly horrified to think that groups she disagrees with may actually enjoy the same rights that she herself and groups she supports has. Your condescending comment once again is meaningless drivel with nothing but an arrogant opinion to back it up. In other words, same as it ever was…
“Bridge”, Brad? Don’t you mean that our resident wingnut has once again crawled out from under a rock?
WingnutSteve tried to save face @ 6 with:
The “right” to harass and threaten and murder people carrying out legal medical procedures? Perhaps I fail to see what “rights” you are pretending she has but others do not. I’m sure you’ll come up with something though.
Ernie asked @ 7:
No. Slimy snakes live under rocks. WingnutSteve is not a slimy snake. He’s a troll. Trolls live under bridges.
No Brad, the comment was about being “heard”. But you knew that. The horror of left wing elitists that opposing views may be heard. In a court of law. Which you yourself stated. And then in typical left wing “I got nuthin” fashion you twisted it into murder. Because you are completely incapable of actually having an adult discussion about actual truth so you (as always) spread your disinformation which is designed to fire up people. “Oh my Gawd people are gonna get MURDERED!” Thankfully, as evidenced by your almost complete lack of discussion here and by your constant begging for money, it’s apparent that your voice is only heard by a select few who don’t need firing up.
But it’s always cute when your little buddy ernie kicks the floor and says “Yeah!”. However predictable, his undying support coupled with your lack of anything never fails to amuse…
“Despite having their own 100-foot buffer zone of protection at the Court …” – Katie
Ah yes, the old “do as I say not as I do” syndrome.
The Supremes should be ashamed of themselves.
WingnutSteve kept digging @ 10 (as he does), with:
That’s hilarious. Nothing funnier than belittling the horrendous record of violence at clinics by Rightwing extremists with whom you politically agree. Keep up the great work, Steve!
Funny how a left wing nut such as yourself cant defend your opposition to those with whom you disagree being heard, so you have to change the subject off topic from where you arrogantly led it in the first place. This is why you will never be legitimate beyond the extremists you cater to, the “sky is falling” as a defense is laughable. However, it’s become routine in that conspiricy theory laden mind of yours.
There’s at least one bit of consistency here, ironically enough: As in campaign-finance cases, SCOTUS is again mistaking freedom of speech with the right to be heard by the audience of one’s choosing irrespective of that audience’s wishes.
WingnutSteve @10, in perhaps his most shameless tirade, ever, sarcastically wrote:
It isn’t that “people are gonna get MURDERED!”, my right wing friend. People have been murdered by those wingnuts who, ironically, claim to support the “right to life.”
Have you forgotten: Scott Roeder, Murderer of Bill O’Reilly’s ‘Tiller the Killer’ Found Guilty; O’Reilly Still Off Hook?
Roeder’s conviction was not the result of some “left wing” hysteria. He was convicted because he ambushed, shot and killed a physician in cold blood after having listened to the shameless tirade of your fellow wingnut, Bill O’Reilly.
Those are the facts, my shameless, dissembling right wing friend. And, as John Adams famously quipped, “Facts are stubborn things!”
Maybe the healthcare clinics should hire mercenaries with automatic weapons just like the big corporations do to protect their workers and clients. In Wisconsin, proposed iron mine workers were being harassed by protesters, so the mining companies hired mercenaries to protect the guys sampling rocks. How would the Right to Life folks like having Mercs protecting the women going to clinics? Maybe that would change the attitudes towards gun carrying laws and the protesters would give the Mercs the buffer zone anyway.