On June 26, 2014, the American Supreme Court ruled that the Massachusetts legislation that used to enforce a 35-feet (barely 11 meters) buffer zone in front of abortion clinics was anti-constitutional (thanks Mimi for the info). Religious and/or conservative groups in North America are organized to semantically and verbally pressure women on their way to get an abortion with various degrees of aggressiveness. The buffer zones around abortion clinics are thus though to materialize “safe spaces” where women can be protected from such pressure. We could try to look at the concept of buffer zone abstractly and ponder the question of what it means to suspend some rights (of expression in this context) on a given space; however, that would be forgetting two fundamental facts about this specific situation: the first one consists in the observation that similar zones are systematically applied around bodies (whether politicians, movie stars, or professional footballers) that are considered (reasonably or not) at risk from a given crowd. In this case, buffer zones are implemented by temporary fences and/or bodyguards that make these areas move with the concerned body. The second fact that fundamentally differentiates this last debatable example from the clinic’s buffer zones is that women who are on their way to get an abortion are systematically antagonized by the surrounding crowds that can tremendously increase their emotional vulnerability. The legal aspect of the violence of this antagonism might not be directly physical, this violence unfolds itself from a group of people in a position of power toward a precarious body: it is therefore a clear case where the law is required to envelop this body with protection.

We often encounter the concept of “safe space” within groups of people, where opinions and feeling are encouraged to be expressed and, thereby an atmosphere of protection against moral judgment needs to be implemented. Whether on specific sites on the Internet or in the semi-private spaces of associations, safe spaces are to be materialized through the social relation of the bodies involved. However, when a safe space needs to materialize within public space, safety cannot simply occur through the social link: it needs to be implemented as actual space....Continue Reading

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