Keep Your Distance

In a blow to pro-lifers, the High Court lets stand an exclusion zone against antiabortion protesters

Eleanor Smeal and her opponent Judy Madsen were sitting (separately) in the Supreme Court audience last Thursday, waiting for the court's opinion in Madsen v. Women's Health Center, when to their mutual surprise William Rehnquist rose to deliver it. Recalls Smeal, president of the pro-choice Feminist Majority: "I figured, 'That's it, we lost.' I saw Rehnquist, who opposes us, and my heart sank." For her part, Madsen, the pro-life activist after whom the case was named, remembers, "I tried to make eye contact with Rehnquist. I wanted him to see me, and I think he did." Then the Chief Justice began...

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