ABORTION CLINICS GET PROTEST-FREE ZONES
A splintered U.S. Supreme Court said anti-abortion activists have to keep their distance from health clinics, opening the way to treat the protesters' scare-tactics as serious crimes. The majority opinion in the contentious 6-3 vote said a Florida judge did not violate anti-abortion protesters' free-speech rights when he created a 36-foot protective zone around a Melbourne, Fla., clinic. The ruling, however, threw out a ban on picketing within 100 yards of the building. "This was one time where the pro-choice and pro-life people could agree on something," says TIME legal correspondent Andrea Sachs. "Which is that the pro-choice people won." BTW: The stinging rebuke of anti-abortion forces must seem like a perfect retirement gift for Justice Harry Blackmun, author of Roe v. Wade. This was his last day on the Bench.
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