Professor McDaniel Comments on Abortion Clinic Buffer Zones

MISSION LOCAL -- Planned Parenthood representatives have urged all its supporters to put pressure on officials to enforce the city’s fairly new buffer zone ordinances. San Francisco has mandated an 8-foot no-protest bubble around clinics since 1993, but the Board of Supervisors increased that distance to 25 feet last year. According to Jason McDaniel, assistant professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, last year’s shift in the law could help separate the local ordinance from the Supreme Court’s decision. In McCullen, the court ruled that Massachusetts lawmakers hadn’t exhausted all their options before implementing their 35-foot measure — San Francisco lawmakers had tried eight feet, but found it insufficient. Nonetheless, enforcement seems to have ceased.