McCullen v. Coakley

Eleanor McCullen (plaintiff) tried to speak one-on-one with women outside abortion clinics to offer alternatives to abortion, a method she found effective. In response to hostile confrontations outside clinics, Massachusetts (defendant) enacted a law barring anyone but clinic employees and patients from standing within 35 feet of a clinic entrance, on top of a preexisting law criminalizing blocking clinic access. After the buffer-zone law passed, McCullen had to stand farther away, lost the intimate conversational approach that had made her effective, and became far less successful in persuading women not to have abortions. She sued, alleging a First Amendment violation; the lower courts ruled for Massachusetts, and the Supreme Court granted review.