“I think patients and staff will feel a little more at risk, and less safe,” Sarah Cyr-Mutty, the community relations coordinator for the Boston Planned Parenthood health center, said Thursday. She is also a member of the volunteer corps that helps escort patients past protesters to the building’s entrance. “It’s frustrating that it seems like their right to be able to stand up closer to somebody’s face is more important than the rights of someone who is trying to access health care.”

The clinic deployed volunteer escorts on Friday — usually a measure taken only on Saturdays — and said volunteers were ready to cover every day as needed.

A couple who asked to be identified only by their first names, Nancy and David, were angry about being approached by demonstrators as they accompanied their daughter to the clinic for a post-abortion checkup on Friday. This month when they brought their daughter for the procedure, demonstrators told them they were killing their grandchild, and they had been apprehensive about further confrontations.

“It may be just a line, but it’s a line that some people were afraid to cross,” Nancy said.

She added, “I would like to see the Supreme Court get its fanny out here and talk to these people.”

Boston officials said Friday that police security was being increased at the health center. “The buffer zone was a measure to ensure public safety,” said Kate Norton, a spokeswoman for Mayor Martin J. Walsh. “Now that it no longer exists, we intend to take necessary steps to ensure that individuals remain safe, which includes an increased police presence until further notice.”

Another demonstrator, Ray Neary, had been outside the clinic when the ruling was announced Thursday, but he thought it would be too hasty to cross the line at the time. Mr. Neary, a retired teacher and war veteran from Medfield, Mass., returned on Friday and strode across the line.

“I read the decision last night. I said, ‘We can obviously call that line nonexistent,’ ” said Mr. Neary, who has been demonstrating here for more than a decade.