386
Opinion of Scalia, J.
to remedy the grievance that is the subject of the lawsuit. I dissent.
I
The most important holding in today's opinion is tucked away in the seeming detail of the "cease-and-desist" discussion in the penultimate paragraph of analysis: There is no right to be free of unwelcome speech on the public streets while seeking entrance to or exit from abortion clinics. Ante, at 383-384. "As we said in Madsen [v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U. S. 753 (1994)], quoting from Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S., at 322, '[a]s a general matter, we have indicated that in public debate our own citizens must tolerate insulting, and even outrageous, speech in order to provide adequate breathing space to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.' " Ante, at 383 (internal quotation marks omitted). But the District Court in this case (like the Court of Appeals) believed that there was such a right to be free of unwanted speech, and the validity of the District Court's action here under review cannot be assessed without taking that belief into account. That erroneous view of what constituted remediable harm shaped the District Court's injunction, and it is impossible to reverse on this central point yet maintain that the District Court framed its injunction to burden "no more speech than necessary," Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U. S. 753, 765 (1994), to protect legitimate governmental interests.
The District Court justified the "fixed buffer" provision of the injunction on two separate grounds, each apparently tied to a different feature of the provision. First, the court said, the fixed buffer zone was "necessary to ensure that people . . . seeking access to the clinics will not be impeded." Pro-Choice Network of Western New York v. Project Rescue Western New York, 799 F. Supp. 1417, 1434 (WDNY 1992). And second, "the 'clear zones' will prevent defendants from crowding patients and invading their personal space." Ibid. Thus, the fixed buffer had a dual purpose: In order to prevent
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