Posted on 07/17/2014 8:45:02 AM PDT by Morgana
In a unanimous decision last month, the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts buffer zone law prohibiting pro-life free speech outside abortion clinics. The decision was a huge victory for pro-life sidewalk counselors who provide women with abortion alternatives.
In their ruling, the Supteme Court struck down a Massachusetts law that created a 35-foot “buffer zone” restricting pro-life advocates from speaking with people entering abortion facilities.
massachusettsSaying the abortion buffer zone is “inconsistent with the First Amendment,” the Supreme Court ruled that that the buffer zone violated the First Amendment because it “restricts access to ‘public way[s]’ and ‘sidewalk[s],’ places that have traditionally been open for speech activities.”
Now, Massachusetts lawmakers have responded with a vengeance — passing a radical bill that prohibits free speech for pro-lifers seeking to help women.
The Massachusetts Senate Judiciary Committee reported the bill out of its panel favorably and the state Senate passed it.
Anne Fox of Massachusetts Citizens for Life told LifeNews that abortion activists told legislators false tales of pro-lifers harassing women.
“Planned Parenthood employs a huge number of people in the state who all drone on about their abuse by pro-lifers. No legislator picked up on the pro-lifers’ demands for pictures or videos of the alleged incidents,” she said.
Fox said pro-abortion lawmakers will rush the bill through the legislature.
“As fast as they can get it through the House and signed, Massachusetts will have a law which is worse than the old Buffer Zone. It effectively creates a 25-foot zone and the penalties are scary – $50,000 and three years in jail,” she said. “The legislature is in the process of disrespecting the Supreme Court and penalizing law-abiding citizens. I do think all the other places that have suspended their Buffer Zones will pass laws like this one. At least Massachusetts will have company in its foolishness.”
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During the hearing, when the pro-lifers had a chance to speak, Eleanor McCullen, an elderly woman who has spent years helping women find abortion alternatives, and other pro-life advocates explained that it would be counterproductive to their efforts to save babies from abortion and help women to treat pregnant women badly.
“Phil Moran, the local lawyer for the McCullen win, compared the new zone to the penalty box where the counselors would always be,” Fox told LifeNews about the hearing. “State Representatives Jim Lyons and Marc Lombardo spoke. Jim pointed out that these same people say “The Supreme court has spoken” about Roe v Wade. Now they have no use for the Court. Marc stated that this proposed law is so outrageous that it will definitely be appealed and cited the costs in time and money that will be associated with the appeal – the McCullen case has already cost many millions.”
Pat Stewart, MCFL Executive Director, gave impressive testimony citing 20 actual laws that already cover blockading, harassing, etc.
The radical left just cannot stand it when they have to obey Constitutional law...they should ALL pack up and move to Cuba.
Abuse by pro-lifers? Is it anything like murdering fetuses in the womb?
Every baby deserves the right to be aborted. < /sarc >
Down is up.
Wrong is right.
Couldn’t they find one pro-life reporter who knows how to write a simple article. What the heck does the bill actually do? Shouldn’t that be up near the top? Instead, it’s way down near the bottom, inside a quote by someone criticizing the bill.
Ignore it and protest them anyway. The Hell with them.
No infant deserves to be murdered.
I think when a judge rules a law unConstitutional every legislator who voted for it should be put in jail.
The court is saying they broke the law after all.
Change the way our government looks real fast.
the left is in full bloiwn authoritarian mode. Will the people stop watching american idol for a second and look what’s happening, or will the country just go down in flames?
The US supreme court can maybe hold the legislators in contempt and jail them?
either the article or the excerpt fails big time in my book
in their failure to point out how the new law differs with what the Supreme Court recently ruled against, or how it varies, in law, with what the Supreme Court said was legitimate action that could, constitutionally, curtail “free speech”
the real important dirt is always in the legal details not in mere opinions of the supposed results of them, which are unsubstantiated without the legal particulars
I would suspect that 75 percent of MA voters endorse all abortions all the time, including many who call themselves “Catholics”.
You are absolutely right about that. I lived in
Massachusetts for a couple of decades and know personally many Eucharistic ministers and religious instructors, many of the latter also teach in the public schools, who support sodomy marriage and child killing rights for mothers.
You’re hard pressed in that state to find Catholics who are conservative.
One will also hardly ever hear of Pro-Life activities, of the parish or church, during the mass. I never heard any priest (during 20+ years) speak out against sodomy marriage or abortion.
Thank you, Lord, for sending me to Georgia.
Sadly, I live in California so I hear you on that. There are very few true Conservative Catholics out here. We just have to keep the pressure up on our politicians. Thank god for our Supreme Court who continues to try and protect our religious liberty and control the left wing murderers of the innocent by striking down their unjust laws.
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