Cardinal O’Malley Criticizes New Massachusetts Buffer-Zone Law
The Boston archbishop said the state Legislature ‘acted with unseemly haste’ in passing legislation that could restrict the activities of pro-life counselors outside of abortion facilities.
BOSTON — Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston has criticized a new Massachusetts law re-establishing buffer zones around abortion businesses after the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down the old law.
In an Aug. 1 statement, the cardinal warned that “the effect, again, is to make it very difficult for citizens seeking to offer alternatives to women contemplating an abortion.”
The law would forbid anyone from “substantially impeding” access to an abortion facility. If this occurred, police could issue a dispersal order and place the protesters 25 feet away from the entrance or driveway of the building.
After the old “buffer zone” law forbade sidewalk counseling within 35 feet of an abortion business, the Supreme Court on June 26 ruled it a violation of the First Amendment. The law imposed “serious burdens” on the counselors, the court wrote, adding that sidewalks have traditionally been a forum for “the exchange of ideas.”
However, the new law establishes yet another buffer zone, Cardinal O’Malley said.
“The Massachusetts Legislature acted with unseemly haste to establish what amounts to a new buffer zone of 25 feet,” he stated.
The new law has the potential to be worse than the old one because it leaves room for broad interpretation of “vague” language, said the pro-life group Massachusetts Citizens for Life.
“There’ s a serious problem with it because we don’t know how the police will enforce it,” the group’s president, Anne Fox, told CNA.
“The way it’s written, if they [the business] opened at 8 every morning, they could call the police at five past eight every morning and say there’s somebody here detaining people. And the police would come and put everybody outside for the rest of the day.”
A sidewalk counselor distributing pro-life literature to a businessgoer, for instance, could be interpreted by police as “detaining” that person, and the two of them together on the sidewalk could be termed a “gathering,” both being illegal acts under the new law. The result could be a dispersal order and a fine of up to $1,000 or up to six months in jail.
“And the penalties are incredible,” Fox said. “These are so disproportionate.The whole thing just reeks of [having the goal of being] out to get the pro-lifers.”
