The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up two cases challenging “buffer zones” that prohibit pro-life activists from approaching someone entering an abortion clinic.
In two orders, the nation’s high court declined petitions challenging ordinances in Carbondale, Illinois, and Englewood, New Jersey, that essentially ban pro-life activists from sidewalk counseling abortion-minded women outside of abortion clinics.
Conservative-leaning Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas indicated they would have heard the cases.
In one case, Coalition Life, a Missouri nonprofit, challenged an ordinance in Carbondale that prohibits people from coming within eight feet of a person going into a healthcare facility to engage in “protest, education, or counseling.” The nonprofit specifically organizes sidewalk counselors outside of abortion clinics. Carbondale notably repealed the ordinance in the summer of 2024.
The second case comes from a sidewalk counselor in New Jersey, Jeryl Turco, who challenged Englewood’s eight-foot buffer zone law.
Lower courts upheld both of those ordinances under the Supreme Court’s 2000 decision Hill v. Colorado, which ruled that a similar Colorado law did not infringe on the First Amendment.
Pro-life groups were hoping to revisit that precedent following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022 overturning Roe v. Wade, which had invented a constitutional right to abortion.
Justice Alito did not author a written dissent, but Justice Thomas did, observing that Hill is “incompatible with our more recent First Amendment precedents.”
“To be sure, this Court has not uttered the phrase ‘we overrule Hill.’ For that reason, some lower courts have felt compelled to uphold Hill-like buffer zones around abortion clinics. This case is another prime example of that trend, and one can hardly blame [lower courts] for misunderstanding when we have created confusion,” Thomas wrote. “We are responsible for resolving that confusion, and we should have done so here.”
The Supreme Court also declined to revisit Hill before in a similar case in 2023.
Coalition for Life released a statement following the Supreme Court’s denial pledging to continue their work to protect unborn babies.
“The Supreme Court has denied our appeal, but we will not be denied the ability to perform our lifesaving work on the sidewalk,” said Brian Westbrook, executive director of Coalition Life. “Sidewalk counselors will continue to show up for the women who need us every single day, in every place we are called…as we expand our operations across the United States, we will continue to advocate for these women and our fundamental right to speak with them to offer help, hope and information that they desperately need.”
“We won’t stand idly by while millions of women are lied to and ushered down a path of pain and regret,” Westbrook added. “We won’t sit on the sidelines while millions of innocent children are murdered, discarded and literally thrown in the trash. We won’t sit by and allow American citizens to be denied their fundamental rights to free speech on the sidewalk. This fight is far from over.”
The cases are Turco v. Engelwood, No. 23-1189, and Coalition Life v. Carbondale No. 24–57 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.
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