Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision ruling Massachusetts’ 35 foot abortion clinic buffer zones unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds stands as one of the court’s more curious and potentially devastating rulings in terms of women’s access to safe and legal abortion. In ruling on free speech and public walkway grounds, the court essentially argued that use of public sidewalks and throughways constitutes a right to free speech more important than a woman’s constitutional right to safety when seeking a constitutionally-protected abortion procedure.

This isn’t an exaggeration.

The 2007 Massachusetts state law establishing the buffer zone law came in the aftermath of a brutal attacks across the state against abortion providers and their patients. Jan Erickson, Director of NOW Foundation Programs, explained the history of violence in and around Massachusetts when discussing the ruling stating:

“In 1994 in Brookline, Massachusetts, a gunman opened fire at two abortion clinics, killing two receptionists and wounding at least five other people. In March of 1993, Dr. David Gunn was murdered outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida. In 1991, a women’s health clinic receptionist was shot and paralyzed from the waist down. According to the Feminist Majority Foundation, since 1991, at least ten people — 5 doctors, 2 receptionists, an escort and a security guard — have been murdered and 17 people wounded, including 8 doctors. On May 31, 2009, Dr. George Tiller was murdered at his church in Wichita, Kansas. [SNIP]

Briefs submitted by the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM), Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the National Abortion Federation and 31 other organizations, including NOW Foundation, detail thirty years of harassment, intimidation and obstruction directed at patients, clinic staff and volunteers at Boston, Worcester and Springfield facilities. Blockades and invasions of facilities were conducted by Operation Rescue, an extremist group determined to stop abortions, despite a permanent injunction and the arrests of hundreds of protesters. In 1991, John Salvi shot and killed a Brookline PPLM employee, 25 year old Shannon Lowney, an employee of another abortion provider, and injured five other persons.”

While anti-choice advocates presented a rosy picture of grandmothers merely attempting to counsel young women entering abortion clinics, the reality of what actually occurs at abortion clinics without buffer zones varies greatly (and more violently). Mother Jones assembled a list of twelve incidents demonstrating why yesterday’s decision could be devastating for Massachusetts women (and all other women in other states where buffer zones may now be eliminated or never established). In one incident, a clinic escort spoke of the daily routine of pushing through crowds of hatred and violence just to get a patient to the abortion clinic front door:

Gail Kaplan, a patient escort at the Boston Planned Parenthood clinic, speaking to the Massachusetts Legislature in 2007:

The protestors are moving closer and closer to the main door. They scream and block the way for the patients to get into the clinic. We fill out police reports almost every week regarding the way they encroach upon the door, but nothing has changed…They’re getting so close that patients are terrified to even walk into the clinic. I have often been spit upon while escorting a patient into the clinic since they got so close to me while shouting their protests…When it rains, they bring these huge umbrellas and try to knock the escorts out of the way.

And direct confrontation isn’t the only problem buffer zones alleviated. Many anti-choice protestors would often disguise themselves as law enforcement to obtain information from patients in order to frighten them into changing their mind. A Planned Parenthood security officer told his story:

Michael T. Baniukiewicz, head of security for Planned Parenthood facilities in Massachusetts, in a sworn 2007 affidavit:

I have observed [two regular protesters] standing by the PPLM-Boston garage entrance in Boston Police hats and jerseys…I saw [them] wearing Brookline Police hats and jerseys while standing near the entrance to the parking lot in front of Women’s Health Services. They carried clipboards and had patients write on clipboards. These patients appeared to be frightened and upset when they learned that [they] were not police. Patients informed me that they had provided their names, addresses, and telephone numbers.

While there’s no question that establishing a buffer zone that impedes into the public throughways somewhat restricts the general public’s freedom of speech, the question has to be asked: why is this a problem?

This isn’t the only instance in which buffer zones exist — overruling the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech — in order to protect another constitutionally guaranteed right. We have buffer zones around other areas as well including (most notably) polling places during elections.

And perhaps most ironically, the Supreme Court has its own buffer zone — which extends much further than 35 feet in front of their building — while court in session.

The narrow ruling thankfully doesn’t affect other areas of abortion clinic protection. It made clear that Massachusetts and other states are free to enact laws relating to clinic access (and blockading entrances). the court also offered advice in establishing new rules to protect against the harassment sure to resume in the absence of buffer zones. In the ruling, Roberts wrote:

“If the Commonwealth is particularly concerned about harassment, it could also consider an ordinance such as the one adopted in New York City that not only prohibits obstructing access to a clinic, but also makes it a crime ‘to follow and harass another person within 15 feet of the premises of a reproductive health care facility.’”

Massachusetts lawmakers are already working at drafting new legislation aimed at protecting abortion clinics and the women (and employees) who frequent them. According to reporting at Politico:

“Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said she had spoken with Gov. Deval Patrick, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and state lawmakers shortly after the ruling, and all were committed to moving quickly to protecting women’s access to the five clinics affected. Massachusetts officials will seek court injunctions and other actions against protesters who threaten women’s safety, as well as work with law enforcement, Coakley said.”

Are you an abortion clinic escort that could be affected by this decision? We’d love to speak to you to hear your story. Leave us a comment at the URL below or send us a message using the Peacock Panache Contact Us form. We’d love to tell your story (even if it’s anonymously).

[Originally published at Peacock Panache on June 27, 2014]