NPR Morning Edition
January 14, 2014
The Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts is led by Marty Walz, a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In 2007, while in the state Legislature, she co-sponsored the buffer zone legislation now at issue. She compares the law with other buffer zone laws — in Massachusetts and many other states — enacted to protect people going to funerals, political conventions and polling places.
She contrasts the 35-foot buffer zone around the clinic with the “150-foot buffer zone around every polling place” in Massachusetts on Election Day. At polling places, even those handing out literature have to stay 150 feet from the entrance.
“There’s even a buffer zone around the Supreme Court,” Walz points out. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court does ban all demonstrations, vigils, picketing and speech-making on its 252-by-98-foot plaza, allowing demonstrations only on the adjacent public sidewalk.
This interview originally appeared here.