This is a decision that can only lead to violence:
The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Massachusetts law that barred protests near abortion clinics.
The law, enacted in 2007, created 35-foot buffer zones around entrances to abortion clinics. State officials said the law was a response to a history of harassment and violence at abortion clinics in Massachusetts, including a shooting rampage at two facilities in 1994.
So here’s the kind of scenario that will eventually happen. A man is escorting a woman (wife, girlfriend, whatever) to an abortion clinic when the harassment begins, and as men sometimes do, he feels bound to defend her honor. Yelling escalates into shoving, shoving into punches. And then maybe somebody in the tussle decides to stand their ground, and pulls out a gun and starts shooting. Because if you don’t think that the kind of person who would stand outside a Planned Parenthood clinic and yell “whore” or “baby killer” at teen-age girls seeking health care, is also the kind of person who shows up armed, then you don’t know human nature. Because pro-life!
The whole point of blockading an abortion clinic is the threat of violence. It is an act of intimidation. And anti-choice extremists will rightly understand this decision as an invitation to intimidation.
Also, 35ft was a ridiculously short distance. This is someone’s place of work. I know protesting military recruitment on campus required you to be across the street, which was at least double that.
A veteran walking by a protest sees a flag burning, or maybe if he’s in Portland someone instead is shitting on it, and in defending the honor of the nation he fought for and his friends died for he begins arguing with a protestor.
“Yelling escalates into shoving, shoving into punches. And then maybe somebody in the tussle decides to stand their ground, and pulls out a gun and starts shooting.”
…
On one level I agree with you. A barrier of 8 feet would better promote engagement while still permitting some spatial separation.
This is not a risk-free society.
ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GINS-
BURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.
That’s two Obama appointees in a unanimous opinion.
So, it stands to reason that showing up at Clarence Thomas’ place of work and screaming violent screeds at him, inches from his face, all the way from his limo to the chamber doors in also protected speech, and shouldn’t be considered to be an infringement on his rights in any way.
So this means those caged “protest zones” a mile or two away from political conventions and the like are also unconstitutional, right? Or is protecting convention delegates from violence a higher societal priority than protecting unwillingly pregnant women?
Never mind. That was a rhetorical question.
Supreme Court Rules Unanimously Against Obama for 12th and 13th time Since 2012
“When the administration loses significant cases in unanimous decisions and cannot even hold the votes of its own appointees . . . it is an indication that they adopted such an extreme position on the scope of federal power that even generally sympathetic judges could not even support it.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/.....-john-fund
Staking out a position against the First Amendment doesn’t engender much sympathy. Not even from a former ACLU attorney and co-founder of the Women’s Rights Project.
re 2– You are part of the political party that encourages violence. Stand your ground — if you can.
@5
9-0.
I guess we are doomed to have a generation or two of back alley abortions, until enough voters all have an sister or mom or personally have a nasty unpleasant story about how hard it was to get an abortion when it was the last option. Or they are forced to keep the unwanted child.
It pisses me off that the same men who fight access abortions also fight birth control and won’t adopt the resulting unwanted children.
@ 7
What men are those, Better?
Adoptive parents, especially those seeking newborns, are turning to domestic options instead, but they’re finding stiff competition, long wait times and costs up to $40,000, experts say.
The National Council For Adoption reports a steady decline in the number of babies put up for adoption over the past several decades. Some 18,078 infants were adopted in 2007, the last time a count was reported. Nearly all were private adoptions.
“There’s a shortage of African-American couples, so they’re usually matched the fastest,” says Joan Jaeger, president of outreach at The Cradle, a non-profit adoption agency in Evanston, Illinois. Heterosexual and same-gender couples generally have similar wait times, while single or older parents may wait longer.
http://www.reuters.com/article.....5Y20130115
Doesn’t seem like there are a lot of babies awaiting adoption. Does seem like there are a lot of parents desperate to love a child.
2007:
18,078 infants put up for adoption
827,609 abortions
@1 Interesting point. I wonder if the same justices would uphold a much wider buffer zone for people protesting against war, the military, nuclear weapons, police brutality, Wall Street greed, and all the other things beloved by conservatives.
Why does the Bickle character think that the decisions my daughters make about their bodies are any of his fucking business?
He’s acting like one of those ‘forced birth’ assholes who could give a fuck about the kid after it’s out of the womb.
Oh, right…expand the work force, keep ’em poor and desperate and ‘ol Bickle and his Neo-Liberal fellow travelers got a ready supply of workers that’ll cut each others throats for a job.
Nice.
The implications of this are very disturbing.
Imagine a redo of the grape boycott, only this time the boycotters can come right to the door of the Safeway!
There is a common thread running through recent Supreme Court decisions involving free speech. The Court has been striking down restrictions on speech, especially political speech. In a way that’s encouraging, but it does leave some problems in its wake. For example, anti-abortion protesters may need reminding that shoving, grabbing, and spitting aren’t speech, they’re assault, and rabbits have a right to defend themselves against assault. One kick to the solar plexus should do it, in most cases.
So much for the strategy of voting Democrat b/c they will appoint people who will preserve a woman’s right to control her own reproduction!
@7 is too correct that abortions will continue to happen even if they make it unsafe by closing all the clinics, etc.
The women’s movement needs to make a comeback.
@10 Maybe we should form an armed liberal posse to protect entrances to abortion clinics, the same way righties form armed posses to protect their right to graze cattle on federal land for free.
re 8 — So, are we to assume that the men seeking to adopt are the same crackpots who are out on the street protesting abortion.
Apples to oranges again, Slappy.
It seems like a no-brainer that a Supreme Court which strikes down a state abortion clinic buffer zone law also can be expected to strike down state ag-gag laws.
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2014/.....?hpt=hp_t2
@ 15
The same apples-to-oranges criticism could be applied to Better’s @7 implication that protesters aren’t adopters.
It’s one of the reasons I responded the way @8 I did.
The conservatives prefer the Brazilian methods anyway. Who needs adoption centers in a country where abortion and birth control are all but illegal, when you can do periodic roundups and exterminations of the little kids that are left in the streets by parents who cannot feed them?
That $40k number was for newborn white kids. The price for boys, for kids of color, or with any sort of issue, is so much less. It’s not right, but adopters will pay top dollar for white.
Lets consider the implications that in 2007, there were not 827,609 abortions, but 827,609 babies, that each woman would have been forced to carry to term,
If the mom (or dad) kept them, do you think conservatives wanted to pay for food stamps and day care and child care and head start for someone else’s kids? No, they would be arguing that the parent’s should have made better choices. You have been.
Maybe they put all 827,609, up for adoption do you honestly think they could find families for all 827,609? That’s 16,500 families in every state in that year alone.
Now, if those kids are not white, or drug effected, or have birth defects, they will have a dramatically higher
Where are the people, liberal or conservatives, stepping up to adopt those existing 104,000 kids? Huh? Huh?
I’m not for abortion. I think it should be as rare as possible and every child should be a wanted child. I’m for giving women the tools they need to control their pregnancy and until men can carry a child to term, I think they should mostly shut the fuck up.
@14. Now that’s an idea that will get us . . . somewhere . . . interesting.
Abortion Clinic worries? Really? A unanimous vote?
WTF worser…
Did your parents make a better choice carrying you with the HORSESHIT you write on this blog? Sometimes Puddy wonders, really wonders.
Many of these aborted baby deaths are due to some career minded woman not ready for a child. They just wanted the zipless fuck and missed their pill, the condom broke or the IUD malfunctioned. Case in point: My wife’s roommate aborted her child because she wasn’t ready for it. Oh they were screaming up a storm during their sexcapades. When she was ready for the child she COULD NOT CONCEIVE AGAIN. She was sad. Puddy remembers her and her husband coming over and discussing this when we had our sons. They are our older son’s god parents! So to mitigate her barrenness, she and her husband she adopted 5 children. Yep 5 children. God works in mysterious ways.
Does that mean her aborted child was going to be on foodstamps if she carried to term? Only in the mind of worser. Or worser are you just another of those DUMMOCRETIN racist stereotypical morons who ASSume every aborted child would have ended up on welfare if they went to full term? It’s damn amazing how the DUMMOCRETIN mind operates and when they let your hair down the real racist DUMMOCRETIN appears front and center; blazing brightly for all to see.
Puddy knows abortion is what the white DUMMOCRETIN uses to keep us in line worser. Puddy remembers these “glorious” events: http://saynsumthn.wordpress.co.....cy-pelosi/ and this one too http://www.jillstanek.com/arch.....ton_1.html It’s sad to see no DUMMOCRETIN has repudiated their leader Margaret Sanger’s (Snee) call to cull the black and yellow peril. Yet oh no, an abortion clinic will be attacked now the barrier is removed. You don’t think people realize DUMMOCRETINS will make hay over any “perceived” attack?
Of course rujaxoff is toooooooooo stooooooooooopid to comprehend this. The reservation is comfy for rujaxoff! Puddy rejects Planned Parenthood and it’s founder… who wanted to stop the black and yellow peril. http://www.jesus-is-savior.com.....sanger.htm
@14, Roger: Sign me up.
I just volunteered to be an escort. Apparently they don’t feel the need for escorts at my local clinic. Thank FSM we live in a relatively sane place.
In one breath the social conservative screams bloody murder when I comment that conservatives don’t want to pay a dime on other people’s kids
http://horsesass.org/supreme-c.....nt-1263644
Then in then social conservative next breath, he posts
http://horsesass.org/open-thre.....nt-1263647
Livid that government money might go to kids of illegals.
Jeez…ya mean Sanger MISSED one? Let’s call here back from the grave and have her dispatch some low hanging fruit over here.
puddypussypissypants. Shame on you. Bad puddypussypissypants.
Bad.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs.....rtion.html
If puddypussypissypants could read, or if he was interested in anything other than his own (moronic) opinion…he could look at some real research.
But fuck that says puddypussypissypants.
I only believe what I THINK!!!
A worse scenario than Goldy proposes is that a woman alone — without any “protective” male — does not dare walk up to the abortion clinic door. Instead, she tries to abort herself and injures herself or dies in the process. This 35-foot law, combined with the growing state laws that abortion practitioners must have hospital privileges, will effectively get rid of Roe v. Wade, which is exactly what the rightwingers have intended.
You Liberals sure are some dark and twisted fuckers.
@27 You mean when we think like conservatives? Yeah, I see why you’d feel that way.
We now have decades of evidence to demonstrate the causal connection between confrontational anti-abortion protesters and violence against the patients, staff, and escorts at these medical establishments. Therefore, the latter can and should arm themselves to whatever degree provides them with personal safety, and neutralize any perceived threats.
After the third or fourth confrontational protester permanently loses his First Amendment rights to a shotgun blast, 35′ will be far too close for their comfort.
…deaths are due to some career minded woman…
…just wanted the zipless fuck…
…aborted her child because she wasn’t ready for it. Oh they were screaming up a storm during their sexcapades…
…to mitigate her barrenness…
the puddibigot, likely without realizing it, mindless fucktard that he portrays, blithely encapsulates the teahaddist view of women, above: resentment of, and punishment for, the high crime of enjoying sex, corrosively coupled with the view of women as merely a vessel for some man’s progeny.
Does he realize that he is so transparent?
Likely doesn’t matter, we’re dealing with a deluded prude who thinks quite literally and concretely that ‘god’ made ‘Eve’ from ‘Adam’s’ rib, and that the Earth, and the entire Universe, is 6000 years old.
I’m with RR, why people listen to such raving fiends, much less vote for them, is an enduring, and very disquieting, mystery.
@31 Thanks for summing that up really well. I noticed his choice of words but couldn’t think of a way to say it.
From his words, Women who enjoy sex or choose careers, and have anything go wrong, deserved what they get. He implied they deserve to be punished. And you are right, it won’t matter if we point this out. This will bounce off his force field.
Abortion should be as rare as possible, so women should be given all the tools and skills, from birth control to education, to control their pregnancies so every child is a wanted child.