or seeking an abortion. not all anti-abortion protests are kind. a 35-foot buffer zone outside abortion clinics, one designed to protect women from violence and intimidation was struck down today by the supreme court. in the unanimous decision all nine justices ruled that a massachusetts law requiring anti-abortion protesters to stay 35 feet away from a clinic entrance was a violation of the first amendment. to give you a visual understanding of what was being debated. this is what the court argued was a violation of the right to free speech. that yellow line and the building, a space that is roughly the width of two parking spots. a space that takes the the average person about seven seconds to cross, a space that s one quarter the size of polling places throughout the country and one that is one-third the size of the buffer zone that surrounds the supreme court. buffer zone, protecting the the
protection for free speech is really at its height. the supreme court says at one point in the decision the public sidewalk is one place where you can speak and know you re not preaching to the choir and that ability to walk up to people and engage them in conversation they say is so important that it dooms the 35-foot buffer zone in massachusetts. it probably also casts a serious doubt on other fixed buffer zones that are in some cities. san francisco, santa barbara, pittsburgh, burlington, vermont, portland, maine, they all have fixed buffer zones. it also, though, i think casts a cloud over solutions that other states have used. for example, some states have what they call bubble zones which move with the patient. it s a sort of no approach zone around each patient that approaches the clinic. the court says nothing about that today. so presumably, its erle willier ruling upholding those is still good, but if you have to be able to approach someone on the sidewalk to satisfy the firs
an endangered species would not seem to be good news for women seeking safe and legal abortions. you re absolutely right, alex. this is an incredibly disappointing decision from the court, and i think shows, frankly, just how out of step and out of touch the supreme court is about what women face just to access health care, particularly at both planned parenthood health centers and other women s health centers and as you said when you opened it s sort of extraordinary that this court is not willing to afford women the same protection that they have themselves having a buffer zone that s three times that of what we have in massachusetts. nancy, i want to ask you, as someone who works in these clinics and knows what it is like for women who are seeking who are making a very difficult choice and seeking a very difficult procedure, the plaintiff in this case, we re not necessarily the most strident or violent folks that have ever approached an abortion clinic or someone who is seek
and that s what our patients deserve. our patients deserve to be able to seek healthcare in a safe and compassionate environment and it s really disappointing that the buffer zones in massachusetts in particular will no longer be able to give that protection to women. cecile, elena kagan was one of the of the questioned that buffer zone with the scalias and thomases of the court. we were disappointed in this decision. given the way the decision was written, there are options and we re certainly working both with law enforcement that has been a strong ally and supporter of both the buffer zone there and also making sure that we protect patients, working with city officials as well as legislators about making sure that we are doing everything we can to, as the doctor said, make sure that women are able to access health care without harassment, and i will say it s been pretty amazing to see the
congressional republicans, but this is a supreme court decision handed down unanimously. it may hurt them at the mlrb, but most of the recess appointment issues because the senate changed the filibuster rule so there isn t the same backlog there used to be in getting these positions confirmed. the issue, you have to remember it goes back decades. they ve done lots of recess appointments and obama s recess appointments have been fewer than george w. bush s, for instance, at this point in his tenure, and i think the issue that the court took on was, you know, whether the senate can preempt recess appointments. they didn t say the president can t do recess appointments and they can say that the president will be able to do what he did in the past was gavel in these phony sessions to prevent a recess appointment. i think it is different, though, than the boehner lawsuit. the boehner lawsuit is sort of out on a string here legally.