When Chief Justice John Roberts announces, on the morning of Jan. 15, that the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in McCullen v. Coakley, the stage will be set for the court to address one aspect of the searing national debate about abortion. The case isn't about the scope of legal protection for that procedure, but about what limits may be placed on speech on public streets near medical facilities in which abortions are performed. McCullen v. Coakley presents the court with an opportunity to reconsider what may well be its most indefensible First Amendment ruling so far this century.

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