Speeding its way through the city’s legislative process is an ordinance that would create “buffer zones” around patients as a way to keep anti-abortion protesters from trying to accost women going into Madison’s lone abortion clinic.
Under the ordinance, you risk a $300 ticket if you get within 8 feet of a patient with a leaflet or a plea to reconsider. And it doesn’t matter if you’re on a sidewalk or other public property if the property is within 160 feet of the clinic.
By contrast, there are no buffer zones or really any other meaningful government restrictions on free speech in the Capitol rotunda.