"Is it harassment, one wonders, for Eleanor McCullen to ask a woman, quietly and politely, two times, whether she will take literature or whether she has any questions?" he asked.

But I also question where exactly the harassment occurs. If a person is offered literature, does that really constitute harassment? Assuming the person takes no for an answer, and immediately backs down, I'm not sure.

That said I'm also familiar with the people standing right at the doors with signs and shoutings attacking woman verbally as they go on, and that's clearly harassment in my mind.

Bryant

I agree that it doesn't happen in many cases - probably most cases.

Bryant

Years ago my dentist was in the same building as PP. One time while a man came up to me and my then 4 year old daughter trying to give us anti-choice literature. It was just a couple of feet from the doorway. He patted my daughter on the head to which she promptly screamed, "Don't touch me!" I suppose he figured since I was mother I supported their cause? I told him to keep his hands off my child. He then tried to hand me a phamphet. I took it and ripped it up in front of him and told him I was a Pro-Choice MOTHER.

Another time, going to that dentist, the protestors were again there. I was going to the dentist for a root canal and was in a lot of pain. The last thing I wanted was to be confronted by these people. Again, a man came right up to me, shouting, "Don't kill your baby!" He blocked me from moving!!!!! Made me furious. I told him he had better get out of my face, or I would MAKE him get out of my face. Stunned, he very quickly backed off.

My experiences with anti-abortion protestors before those zones were created. Hell, I was not even going for an abortion, although I did go to PP once for contraceptives when my husband had lost his job. That was after the buffer zones went into effect and they had to stay across the street from the building.

Imagine a young woman all alone going for an abortion and being accosted by these people? No, they are not going to be just vocal. They WILL confront, and block, these women from the enterance. They did it before. They won't again? Of course they will.

It's not just ordinary citizens "offering" counseling or literature to people they don't know, have never seen before, but about whom they've made a shitload of assumptions. They are where they are for a reason, and that reason is to harass and intimidate people.

As usual, of course, the Supreme Court exempts itself from the rules it will place on the citizens, and in the Moss decision from April, they have also exempted the President from being directly petitioned for redress. The Supremes seem to think they can divine the actions of peaceful protesters approaching the President or their august personages; but they feign total ignorance of what these mobs in front of medical clinics, mobs who have a history and propensity for lethal violence, are there for.

"Offering" "counseling" my sweet Aunt Fanny.

It will be like that again.

...namely:

1 - although the plaintiff may indeed be calm and wait until the person indicates a willingness to engage in discussion, she is not typical of the clinic protesters -- including incidents that prompted the buffer law in the first place, which included one abortion provider who was slain

2 - although we do have laws protecting our right to free speech, there is NO -- I repeat, NO -- right to ENGAGE someone else in dialog. You can rant on your street-corner soapbox all day long, no problem: that's free speech. And I can walk right on by without giving you a second look: that's my freedom. But at the point that you and a crowd of your supporters start yelling at me, blocking my way, that sort of thing: that is not your freedom of speech.

Anyway, if the Supremes really had a principled position, they would have struck down Free Speech Zones in the same decision. Since they did not do so, I will continue to believe this is a piss-poor decision by all 9 judges. The so-called "liberals" who came to this decision are delusional if they think this was a nice neat free-speech issue. They gave no weight to the incidents of harassment that had prompted the law in the first place, even though they admitted in their decision that such incidents are relevant.

And to say this is a good decision because the zones affect only people on one side of the issue is a red herring. The issue is, do people have a right to seek medical attention without being harassed or forcibly "counseled". I say they do.

The decision stinks.