Supreme Court rejects challenges to abortion clinic ‘buffer zone’ laws that restrict protesters
The Supreme Court declined to consider overturning a 24-year-old precedent that upheld "buffer zone" laws limiting how close protesters can get to abortion clinic entrances.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider overturning a 25-year-old precedent that upheld "buffer zone" laws limiting how close protesters can get to abortion clinic entrances.
In a setback for abortion opponents, the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority hostile to abortion rights, opted against weighing whether such laws violate the free speech rights of protesters under the Constitution's First Amendment.
At issue in the two related cases were buffer zone laws in Carbondale, Illinois, and Englewood, New Jersey.
In the 2000 ruling in a case called Hill v. Colorado, the court upheld a buffer zone law in that state. A wave of such measures were enacted following violence connected to anti-abortion protesters, including a 1994 case in which two clinic workers were killed in Massachusetts.
Two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, said they would have taken up the Illinois case.
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