The Supreme Court demanded to get rid of abortion clinics without protest zones

Abortion opponents have noted this since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade, the justices also criticized a previous ruling on protest-free zones at clinics.

WASHINGTON – A few days after Supreme Court in 2022 upside down constitutional right to abortion, New York County passed a law banning anti-abortion activists from approaching women outside of abortion clinics.

When the religious group asked the Supreme Court to intervene, Westchester County officials got rid of the restrictions and judges last year refused to intervene.

Now anti-abortion groups are urging judges not to fall for yet another “bait and switch.”

They asked the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to a similar law in Carbondale, Illinois, which was overturned as the case went to the high court.

Anti-abortion groups as well as a number of Republican attorneys general want the justices to use it to overturn a 2000 decision – Hill v. Colorado – that upheld restrictions on protest around abortion clinics.

“It is time for the Court to restore the constitutional rights that Hill has gutted, and this case provides a golden opportunity to do so,” Paul Clement, a former U.S. attorney general who has argued more than 100 Supreme Court cases and represents the anti-abortion group Coalition Life, the statement said.

Close enough for eye contact compared to an 8-foot buffer

The Life Coalition, a Missouri-based group, argues that its members need to get close enough to women to look them in the eye when they speak out against abortion.

In Hill v. Colorado, the court ruled 6-3 that Colorado could prohibit activists from coming within eight feet of another person within a 100-foot zone around a health care facility.

The judges upheld the decision in 2014, when it amazed A 35-foot protest-free zone outside abortion clinics in Massachusetts.

Alito criticized the 2000 decision overturning Roe

But the court criticized the 2000 decision, overturning it. Roe W. Wade in 2022. While criticizing the impact of abortion cases on other areas of law, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Hill had “misrepresented First Amendment doctrines.”

Instead of taking it as the warning it was intended to be, some municipalities ignored it, anti-abortion groups say.

Authorities in Westchester County in New York have imposed restrictions similar to those upheld in the Hill case.

A Catholic “sidewalk counselor” challenged the rules, saying they violated her First Amendment right to engage in personal conversation with women entering a Planned Parenthood clinic.

The restrictions were upheld by an appeals court based on a 2000 Supreme Court decision. But when the Becket Foundation for Religious Liberty then asked the Supreme Court to review the 2000 decision, county officials overturned the restrictions. Their repeal was supported by Planned Parenthood, which agreed with the county that the restrictions were unnecessary and difficult to enforce.

The Becket Foundation, however, called the Supreme Court’s attention to the fact that the district attorney hoped the law would not be reviewed by the high court because “I think we know what the Supreme Court will rule if it ever comes before it. »

However, last year the judges refused to hear the case.

Now they are given another chance to reverse the 2000 decision.

Illinois city responds to rising anti-abortion protests

The southern Illinois town of Carbondale saw a rise in anti-abortion protests after two reproductive health facilities opened to accept women from surrounding states that had restricted abortions in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.

City officials responded by imposing restrictions modeled on Colorado. But the City Council repealed the ordinance in July before anyone was charged with violating it.

Lawyers for the city told the Supreme Court they believed existing laws provided sufficient protection against any “disorderly conduct.”

The anti-abortion groups’ claim that the ruling was overturned to avoid Supreme Court intervention is merely speculation, Carbondale’s lawyers said. In any case, they added, the city has the right to reconsider its position for any reason.

The attorneys general of Kentucky and 14 other states are among those alleging violations of the law.

“If the court again upholds the repeal strategy, then each government will have a plan that it can follow if it chooses,” they told the court in the filing. “He could pass a Hill-style law, make it effective for a year or two or more while the lawsuit works its way through the lower courts, and then overturn it when the case goes to trial. And all the while, Hill remains on the books.”

New Jersey Buffer Zone Also Considered by Supreme Court

The Supreme Court could soon decide whether to hear the case, as well as another lawsuit filed in New Jersey.

An anti-abortion activist represented by the American Law and Justice Center is challenging a 2014 ordinance in Englewood, New Jersey, that created buffer zone free from protests around certain medical facilities. A buffer prevents the public from coming within 8 feet of clinic entrances.

Based in Philadelphia 3^district In January, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the restrictions were narrowly tailored, did not violate protesters’ First Amendment rights and were less restrictive than those the Supreme Court authorized in 2000.

But challengers will continue to ask the Supreme Court to intervene, Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice told the court, until the 2000 decision is overturned.