At abortion clinics, buffers vanishing
After ruling, cities end zones.
Less than two weeks after a Supreme Court ruling struck down a Massachusetts law requiring protesters to stay outside a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics, cities around the country are moving to repeal similar laws or are not enforcing the buffer zones.
On Monday night, the City Council in Portland, Maine, repealed an ordinance requiring protesters to stay 39 feet away from a women’s health clinic downtown and directed staff to suggest alternatives by September.
Last week, the city of Burlington, Vt., decided to stop enforcing parts of an ordinance prohibiting people from demonstrating within 35 feet of an abortion clinic. Another segment of the ordinance, which makes it a crime to block people from entering a clinic, will still be enforced. And the city of Madison, Wis., has stopped enforcing an ordinance requiring protesters to stay 8 feet away from people entering or exiting a clinic.
The Supreme Court’s decision June 26 in McCullen v. Coakley said that Massachusetts’ fixed buffer zone ordinance, which prohibited protesters within 35 feet of a clinic, was unconstitutional.
However, the justices let stand a 2000 decision in another case, Hill v. Colorado, which prohibits protesting and distributing literature within 8 feet of someone entering a health care facility.
Such “bubble zone” ordinances are common across the country, including in Chicago.
But ina concurring opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that the Hill bubble zone ordinance should be overruled, based on the McCullen ruling.
That is leading some attorneys to question whether bubble zone ordinances are constitutional.
“In light of the Supreme Court decision, we suspended enforcement to figure out what, if anything, is left of the ordinance,” said Michael May, Madison city attorney. “If you read the decision, I’m not sure there’s much of Hill left.”
Abortion rights advocates say they’re frustrated with the Supreme Court ruling, contending that buffer zone laws are the only way to keep patients from harm. In Portland, the ordinance went into effect in November because the city said women’s safety was at risk without it.
The Portland ordinance was challenged in court this spring, and the judge in the case put things on hold until the Supreme Court could rule on McCullen.
Still, some ordinances will remain in effect, including in New Hampshire, which established a 25-foot buffer zone, and in Pittsburgh, which in 2005 enacted a law creating a 15-foot buffer zone around clinics.
“As of now, our law department and police think that it is narrowly tailored enough,” said Timothy McNulty, a spokesman for Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto.
A law in San Francisco similar to Massachusetts’ ordinance also will stand for now, said Beth Parker, chief legal counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. “There are differences,” Parker said, namely that the San Francisco ordinance creates a 25-foot zone, not a 35-foot one.