If buffer zones around abortion mills is permitted, then it stands to reason to have buffer zones around banks to control Occupy and anarchists, around fast food places to control mad socialists, and around furriers to control PETA protesters.

Oh, raindrop, bless your heart. That'd be an apt comparison if the people protesting banks tried to physically assault bankers to prevent them from going about the business of banking or people just trying to deposit a paycheck. And protesters are frequently removed from private property, especially when they pose a physical threat to the people they're protesting. Nobody's speech is being hindered.

From 35 feet, you can make the same point as you would right up in someone's face. Nobody's speech is being unreasonably restricted, but in the interest of the safety of everyone involved, a physical buffer is in place (Protesters on both sides can get out of control. Some people take women's rights seriously, go figure).

@3: Don't feel bad. Probably the number one contraction error: You're a dick.

Seahawks block 49ers... fans from buying tickets.

@4

As opposed to the Occupy loonies blocking access to public parks, camping in them and turning them into open air latrines?

You may not realize this, but free speech and lawful arrests for the assaults (which you claim to have happened) aren't mutually exclusive. Someone who blocks access physically should be arrested. They have the right to expression but not to stop
people conducting lawful (if profoundly immoral) abortions. And nobody has the right to lay hands on others in the name of free speech.

So I expect to hear you agree with me next time striking 'workers' block access to the business at which they work? How about when peace protesters block access in Olympia to the ports?

@4

Oh and Mac?

The civil rights of my sisters and mother and nieces and those of my wife and daughter I take very seriously.

I just don't think of infanticide as a civil right.

@2: All I have to do is read your comment as far as the words "abortion mills" to know that nothing that comes after will be of any sense or value.

@10: Embryo =/= Infant.

Thanks for playing, please try again later.

So the maid got stuck when she applied for a visitor's visa knowing she intended to work as a maid and didn't want to come clean with any authorities ? Brilliant.

"NSA Devises Radio Pathway Into Computers"? Big whoop...that's nothing.

Once again, a teacher stood between students and a gun. I hope people remember that the next time teachers are maligned.

@7 FWIW, my friend in Vancouver, BC was also blocked from buying tickets, despite article's claim that BC is allowed.

@12: Sorry, you can't apply math tricks on this one. Both sides of these heated debates have to simply "deal with the ambiguity" of when a fetus can survive as an infant as we all know that they can survive pre-mature births and emergency C sections. So there is no definitive answer. That's the way nature is.

@2,

When was the last time an Occupy protester murdered a banker? I'll wait.

It's nice to know that even the elite have their business tapped by the NSA. We do know that, right?

@10: By your definition, your God murders almost half of all humans before they are born, and you want me to think he cares about the couple that we have a hand in aborting?

http://www.babycenter.com/0_understandin…

"Deal with the ambiguity" is right up there with "Teach the controversy" when it comes to bullshit distraction tactics to imply that settled scientific or medical fact is something different. Or legal fact, for that matter. Abortion is legal and these clinics are operating under the law. There is no ambiguity there.

Williams is not half as scorching as Australia itself. Temps at the matches are 108 degrees F (in the shade; the players are in direct sun), with further increases up to 113 expected, and both players and ball boys are passing out, vomiting, and having their water bottles melt onto the court. Outside of the cities, the whole country is on fire again.

Good to see Raindrop and Seattleblues siding with the rights of their hero Eric Rudolph again.

@17

Abortion is legal. The only ambiguity involved is: to get one or not, should the choice arise.

That's the way it is. Get one, don't get one, it's up to you. Do not presume to make the choice for others. Only women and pubescent girls can (at this point in human technological advances) 'get pregnant'. That's the way nature is.

As to buffer zones for protests; they exist already in many situations. Both Presidents Bush and Obama have utilized them at events in which they have appeared.

We all have the right to free speech. We do not have the right to an audience, willing or otherwise. We also do not have the right harass or impede others from legally exercising their right to access legal medical procedures.

That's the way the law is. That's the way rights work. Government is obligated to protect citizens and to ensure public safety; there is precedent involved in buffer zones for women's health clinics (which provide myriad health services, of which abortion is but one).

The First Amendment does not protect terrorism.

@9: Speaking as someone who's marched in solidarity with striking workers...
When workers strike, they don't actually block access to their place of employment. Truly principled people won't cross a picket line, in my opinion, but there's nothing actually stopping customers from coming in. Your ignorance is exceeded only by your arrogance.

@10: Abortion isn't infanticide because an embryo (or early fetus) isn't a person yet. Science, law, and even most interpretations of Scripture disagree with you, and yet you seem to think that by simply making a statement it becomes true. When are you going to accept that you are not the arbiter of reality?

@17: Abortion is actually illegal by the time a fetus is capable of living outside the womb. At about 24 weeks' gestation, the developing fetus appears to have the rudiments of consciousness and has a 50% chance of survival. Most laws on abortion do not allow them past this point except under exigent and unusual circumstances. (This is as it should be, in my own opinion.)