There is a disturbing case making its way through the U.S.
Supreme Court these days and it has to do with our right to free speech.
Our First Amendment to the Constitution bars Congress from
making any law(s) abridging the freedom of speech.
But as all our rights guaranteed by our Constitution, are
not absolute but must be regulated, so is that of free speech. We all are aware
of the law against yelling “fire” in a crowded theater as well as saying bad
things about someone that are obviously not true, etc.
In this case (McCullen vs. Coakley) the free speech
challenge comes from a Massachusetts state law forbidding anti-abortion
protesters from a 35 foot buffer zone around an abortion clinic.
I will not go into the absurdist details of this issue but
suffice it to say, we are all aware of these misguided fetus worshipers that do
not care anything about the woman undergoing the abortion or even what would
happen to the fetus if the woman does not have an abortion, all they care about
is that an abortion does not happen.
For this reason, they feel that if they badger the woman all
the way to the clinic doors, the woman will change her mind and not have the
abortion that she, her husband and her doctor decided she should have.
My concern here is with the rights of the woman wanting an
abortion; does she have any rights against being harassed at a very difficult
time for her? Does she have a right to feel “safe” entering the clinic and that
issue is very strong given the violence that has been associated with abortion
clinics and workers in those clinics?
Does the abortion clinic have a right to protect their
patients as they enter the clinic?
I have to point out at this time that there are legal buffer
zones around government and military institutions. Now there are legal quiet
zones protecting military funerals. There are laws as to how far political
supporters must stay away from polling places and even the Supreme Court has a
no-protest rule in front of its building…so a precedent does exist.
What we have here is “safety” vs. “free speech” and as you
have seen in the prohibition against yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, the “safety”
issue takes precedence every time.
Even though a 35 foot buffer in front of the clinic door
will not prevent someone intent on doing grave physical damage to building or
the people associated with that building, it does grant a modicum of
protection.
The other problem I have here is our rights against being harassed…do
we have any rights in this matter?
Does the right to free speech give the speaker the right to
yell in my ear and face something I do not want to hear?
I don’t think the First Amendment right to free speech had
in mind the nonsense being presented by these anti-abortion fanatics; their
views are not being abridged in any way. They can shout these views from 35
feet around the clinic door so they are not being silenced in any way. What
they cannot do is get in a person’s face and scream their bullshit nose to nose
and so how is that abridging their constitutional right to free speech.
We have truly entered into an age of absurdity…
Wonder if the clinics can use a law barring people from impeding
normal and legal business activity from being carried on in a place of business?
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