the Massachusetts law requiring a "buffer zone" around abortion clinics where protesters cannot enter is an unconstitutional violation of free speech, the AP/Boston Herald reports (AP/Boston Herald, 9/8).

The buffer zone law, which was originally passed in 2000, requires antiabortion protesters to stay at least six feet away from clinic employees and patients and establishes around the entrances to facilities providing abortions an 18-foot zone within which individuals may not interact with clinic visitors or staff for the purpose of counseling or protesting.

U.S. District Judge Edward Harrington -- who ruled the law unconstitutional 10 days after it was signed -- in July 2003 reversed his previous ruling and dismissed a challenge to the law filed by abortion-rights opponents (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 7/11/03).

Arguments

Mark Rienzi, the protesters' attorney, said that workers at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Boston escort women through the buffer zone, telling them to ignore the abortion-rights protesters and remind them of their right to an abortion, the Herald reports.

Rienzi said that abortion-rights opponents outside the clinics who try to persuade women to consider alternatives to abortion are "threatened with arrest," according to the Herald. As a result, the law creates an "unconstitutional double standard for free speech," Rienzi said, according to the Herald. Rienzi said that the 1st Circuit Court should declare the law unconstitutional or send the case back to the district court for trial.

However, Assistant Attorney General William Porter said that Planned Parenthood employees are instructed to discuss "neutral topics" while escorting women into the clinic and that the law allows any person to discuss any topic with a woman inside the buffer zone if she consents, according to the Herald.

In addition, Porter said that police have "taken pains" to allow both clinic employees and protesters know what they are permitted to do under the law, according to the Herald. "The tangible evidence shows a neutral approach, both by the attorney general's office and the police departments," Porter said. The 1st Circuit Court agreed to hear the case "under advisement," according to the Herald (Boston Herald, 9/8).