Supreme Court weighs clash between freedom of speech, abortion rights

JUDY WOODRUFF: Free speech and abortion rights clashed today at the Supreme Court.

NewsHour correspondent Kwame Holman starts with some background.

KWAME HOLMAN: The case grew out of complaints by anti-abortion demonstrators at this Planned Parenthood clinic in downtown Boston.

MAN: If you look at that yellow line, it actually puts us out on the street, so we're apt to get hit by a car or a bus or whatever.

KWAME HOLMAN: That painted yellow line marks a 35-foot buffer zone required by Massachusetts law since 2007 at sites where abortions are performed. Crossing it could mean two-and-a-half years in prison for a protester, although no one has been prosecuted under the law.

Seventy-six-year-old Eleanor McCullen leads the fight to overturn the law and attended today's arguments. She says the restriction stifles the free speech rights of abortion opponents trying to dissuade women from going inside.

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ELEANOR MCCULLEN, plaintiff: They want to stop, but they -- they -- they want to go in too. They have an appointment. And they're mixed up, and if I just had another like two minutes or three minutes, that's all I need, but when I'm cut off, it's very, very frustrating.

KWAME HOLMAN: The Massachusetts attorney general, Martha Coakley, answers that the law lets protesters have their say, while protecting clinic clients and staff from harassment.

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Supreme Court weighs clash between freedom of speech, abortion rights