Abortion Rights as a Free-Speech Flashpoint
The Supreme Court has a chance to fix its mistake in this First Amendment case.
By Floyd Abrams
Updated Jan. 5, 2014 6:39 pm ET
When Chief Justice John Roberts announces, on the morning of Jan. 15, that the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in McCullen v. Coakley, the stage will be set for the court to address one aspect of the searing national debate about abortion. The case isn't about the scope of legal protection for that procedure, but about what limits may be placed on speech on public streets near medical facilities in which abortions are performed. McCullen v. Coakley presents the court with an opportunity to reconsider what may well be its most indefensible First Amendment ruling so far this century.
Eleanor McCullen and the others who brought the case describe themselves as engaging in "sidewalk counseling" outside abortion clinics in Boston, urging women who intended to have abortions not to do so. They claim that a 2007 Massachusetts law banning the presence of anyone within 35 feet of the entrance or exit of any such facility (except employees of the facility, patients entering or leaving, and law-enforcement officials) violates the First Amendment by preventing them from being able to speak with women as they approach the clinics.