In a new term starting this week, the Supreme Court will hear cases including McCullen vs. Coakley, which will see them ruling on a Massachusetts state law which forces abortion protestors to remain a minimum of 35 feet away from any given clinic they happen to be picketing. (Coakley, in this case, is the state's Attorney General Martha Coakley, who first approved the law back in 2007.)
Protestors claim the law infringes their First Amendment rights (specifically by limiting their ability to "peacefully assemble"… and then less-peacefully heckle women visiting the clinic).
A circuit court in Massachusetts upheld the law, and the Supreme Court themselves upheld a similar decision back in 2000 (specific in that instance to Colorado's state laws). But changes in the Court's lineup since then — changes that have resolutely skewed it more towards a conservative majority — mean the First Amendment/freedom of speech argument put forward by the anti-abortion plaintiffs could prove more compelling.
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