Governor Signs Buffer Zones Bill Into Effect

Good fences piss some neighbors off

By MAX PUBLIUS

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Surrounded by Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) employees, clinic volunteers and supporters, Governor Deval Patrick signed the Buffer Zone Bill into law last Tuesday. This new law creates a 35-foot safety zone between reproductive health center entrances and pro-life activists throughout the Bay State. A 1994 US Supreme Court ruling allows for buffer zones of up to 36 feet to be established.

Supporters of the law hope that the new boundary will allow safer access to these facilities by clients and staff who, in the past, claim to have met with harassment from anti-abortion activists. Opponents assert that their First Amendment right to free speech is being violated. The old law, enacted in 2000 in response to the 1994 murder of two health care center employees in Brookline, MA, was designed to keep protesters at a safe distance from the medical facilities in the interest of public safety while respecting the protesters' Constitutional right to free speech. In recent years, however, both law enforcement officials and health center employees complained that the law was too vague and, consequently, unenforceable. It had established an 18-foot zone inside of which protesters were not allowed to approach within 6 feet of persons entering or leaving the buildings without their consent.

According to David Falcone, communications director for Senate President Therese Murray, the difficulty with this arrangement was that the old zone was a "moving bubble, which made it very hard for local police and other authorities to enforce."

Lisa Darcey, media relations coordinator for PPLM, stated that the old law still allowed protesters to approach, harass and abuse clients and staff. A health care center volunteer that safely escorts women through the demonstrations claims that anti-abortion protesters were still able to use creative tactics, such as donning Boston Police T-shirts to get close enough to get their message across or via scare tactics such as videotaping license plates of cars entering the parking lot.

Outside the Planned Parenthood facility on Comm. Ave. in Allston Saturday, pro-life activist Ruth Schaivone, a self-proclaimed "voice of the unborn," denied using such extreme measures and noted that the protesters' only tools are their voices, pamphlets and prayers -- tools that the new law seeks to suppress. She proudly boasted that scores of lives have been saved by their efforts.

Bill Cotter, President of Operation Rescue: Boston, speaking just beyond the newly painted 35-foot buffer zone, claimed that, beyond the infringement of his organization's right to free speech, which his group intends to challenge in court, the governor and the legislature have taken a piece of public property and, "by extension, have turned it into Planned Parenthood's private property" to do with as they please. He pointed to pedestrians walking through the zone and notes that the law is unfair because it allows other members of the public to use the area unencumbered while his organization and other abortion opponents cannot.

Complaints and arguments from both sides notwithstanding, Falcone insists that assuring the public safety was the only motive behind the enactment of the new law. "Local authorities actually asked us to clarify the law," he said, "because they had a terrible time trying to enforce the old law." The new zone creates a boundary that is "entirely enforceable while still maintaining the rights of everyone involved."

When asked how she felt about the new law, Lisa Darcey stated simply that she was "thrilled," adding that the "fixed zone is a better balance" that provides safe access to the health care facility for employees and clients while protecting the freedom of speech of the protesters.

Schaivone worries that the extension of the old buffer zone does not bode well for pro-life activists and their "moral mission." She agonizes, "Yesterday it was 18 feet, today it's 35. Who knows, tomorrow it might be a mile."

Back outside Planned Parenthood in Allston, while demonstrators held a prayer vigil, a Boston Police officer warned an activist who's toe was breaching the freshly painted yellow line that if she "enters the zone in any way, she was subject to arrest."

Responding to the activist's claims of unfairness with the new situation, the officer said, "I'm just enforcing the law that the people enacted." To which the activist replied, "You mean that the legislators enacted. They're the real baby killers!"

Observing this exchange, a Planned Parenthood escort remarked, "I like this new line already."