Bill HB430, the buffer zone repeal bill, is up for a vote before the full NH House. It allows private abortion businesses to mark up to 25 feet of the public sidewalk and street outside their facility as a buffer zone where freedom of speech is banned, including silent prayer.
Related: The Hypocrisy of Your Reps Who Chose to Kneel for the Anthem
This is the email I sent my state rep in Nashua Ward 7, Catherine Sofikitis, about HB430:
Rep. Sofikitis,
You exercised your Constitutional right to peacefully kneel during the National Anthem during a House session. I am asking that you vote to preserve my Constitutional right to kneel and pray on a public sidewalk outside an abortion facility in NH.
The current buffer zone law allows abortion facilities to post up to 25 feet of public sidewalk and streets as no-free-speech zones. In a marked buffer zone, it would be illegal to stand or kneel and quietly pray. It would be illegal to stand on the public sidewalk and make a phone call or smoke a cigarette. It would be allowed for someone to walk through the zone once, but if someone passed through multiple times, that would be illegal.
In the almost seven years since the buffer zone law was passed, not a single buffer zone has been posted in New Hampshire. If this law was so urgently needed, why has it never been used?
Please vote No on the ITL motion on HB430, the buffer zone repeal bill, and Yes on the OTP motion. Vote for our Constitutional right to kneel, the same right that you exercised.
Read more about why it is Time to kill the “buffer zone” law.
