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Buffer Abortion Case Analysis

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Is the Massachusetts 35-foot buffer zone set at abortion clinics, in order to protect potential patients from being disturbed, discriminatory against anti-abortion petition groups who seek to freely express their thoughts to those patients and assemble closely outside the clinics? This was the civil liberties question raised in the Supreme Court case of McCullen v. Coakley. Eleanor McCullen challenged attorney general Martha Coakley on the constitutionality of An Act Relative to Public safety that established a 35-foot buffer zone at abortions clinic entrances in Massachusetts to protect patients seeking abortions on the basis that it discriminates specifically against anti-abortion petition groups and it infringes on their freedom of speech as the article In the New York Times “Courts Reject Zone to Buffer Abortion Clinic” by Adam Liptak and John Schwarts suggests.
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Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. They stated that “protecting people from speech they do not want to hear is not a function that the First Amendment allows the government to undertake in the public streets and sidewalks.” For them, the Massachusetts law was in fact aiming to discriminate against opponents of abortion on the basis of content of speech because the statute inhibited patients seeking abortions to so much as hear about McCullen’s anti-abortion views that were at odds with those of the clinic. The second concurring opinion held by Samuel A. Alito Jr. adds that the statute had “blatantly [discriminated] based on viewpoint.” He continued, “critics of the clinic are silenced, while the clinic may authorize its employees to express speech in support of the clinic and its work.” Alito suggested that not only did the Massachusetts law limit McCullen’s speech because of its content, but also favored the clinics point of view over anti-abortion views through the creation of the 35-foot buffer

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