Lower Court Holding in McCullen v. Coakley
Decision of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
This case does not come to us as a stranger. At the turn of the century, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law that created fixed and floating buffer zones around abortion clinics. We rejected serial challenges to the constitutionality of that law. One might have thought that the matter would end there, but it did not. In 2007, the legislature revisited the statute and amended it to create a fixed 35-foot buffer zone around the entrances, exits, and driveways of abortion clinics. The revised statute drew renewed fire and, in 2009, we upheld it against a facial challenge. This decision…
