U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Massachusetts’ Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone Law
The Springfield Republican‘s Shira Schoenberg reports that on Thursday the United States Supreme Court overturned a Massachusetts law establishing buffer zones around abortion clinics where protestors could not enter. While the Court recognized that Massachusetts had an interest in maintaining order and access to abortion facilities, it ruled that the law restricted the freedom of speech too much. In the decision for McCullen v. Coakley, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “At the same time, however, they 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.”