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Ch. 11 Constraints of time, place, and manner relating to Copley Advertising


            In Chapter 11 Tedford and Herbeck discuss Personal Privacy and Safety: “The Antiabortion Protests”. In this section, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) is explained as follows: “[FACE] provided both criminal and civil penalties against anyone who “by force or by threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person because that person is or has been… obtaining or providing reproductive health services” (297, Tedford and Herbeck). This section also discusses the supreme court ruling that a 36-foot buffer zone around clinic entrances was constitutional. With all of this in mind, I reflected on a class discussion and presentation reading about Copley Advertising and geo-fencing. I’ll link a short explanation of this story here.

Copley Advertising was using geo-fencing to target women entering reproductive health facilities. Copley reached a settlement but has denied any wrongdoing in the case. I am curious what everyone thinks of this story related to FACE and the 36-foot buffer zone that was ruled constitutional. Do you think sending targeted ads to a woman’s phone could be argued “physical obstruction to intimidates or interfere with obtaining”. I think that physical obstruction is a stretch, but the 36-foot buffer zone is an interesting conversation. Women had to enter the clinic to get targeted ads so is that violating the “buffer zone”? What are your thoughts on this? Also, this section is referring to protesting abortion. Would you consider the Ads by Copley protesting? 


Works Cited

“Company Barred From Using Geo-Fencing To Target Women At
         Mass. Health Clinics.” CBS Boston, 4 Apr. 2017,
         boston.cbslocal.com/2017/04/04/geo-fencing-copley-advertising-
         massachusetts-health-clincs-abortion/.

Tedford, Thomas L., and Dale A. Herbeck. Freedom of Speech in the United 
States. Strata Publishing, Inc., 2017.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 9, 2017 at 6:50 AM

    Personally, I believe that since Copley's entire ad strategy was to target these women once they were inside the clinics the argument could definitely be made that they were violating FACE. They definitely interfere with a woman attempting to seek reproductive health services and in some cases it probably could be viewed as intimidation.

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