Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Tuesday applauded the Burlington City Council for strengthening the city’s buffer zone ordinance, but said the new version “only slightly mitigates the problem.”
The city had to rework the ordinance, which is meant to protect patients from harassment outside reproductive health centers, after the U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down a Massachusetts law that created a 35-foot buffer zone.
The amendment, which was adopted on a unanimous vote, creates a definition of harassment that prohibits acts like following someone in a threatening way or using abusive language, continually attempting to talk with someone after they have said they don’t want to talk, intentionally touching someone or making threatening gestures. It also gives police authority to make repeat offenders move back 25 feet for a 12-hour period, according to Planned Parenthood.
The organization says that following the Supreme Court ruling, patients of the Planned Parenthood Burlington Health Center began to see an increase in protest activity.
“Our patients have complained about being approached or followed by protesters after asking to be left alone, being videotaped or photographed, hearing shouting from the protesters in the waiting room, and having experienced stress because of the protestors’ presence and attempts to engage them,” said Jill Krowinski, the organization’s Vice President of of Education and Vermont Community Affairs.
The city’s new ordinance is a “tough compromise on what little options the Supreme Court case gave us,” Krowinski said in a news release. “But it is a first step in the right direction.”
