The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on August 6, 2024, voted 5-0 to write a draft ordinance establishing a free speech “buffer zone” area around places of worship, hospitals, schools, and health care clinics — including abortion facilities — in the unincorporated areas of the county.
According to the Los Angeles Daily News, the buffer zone would ban anyone from anyone obstructing or blocking another person from entering or exiting these facilities, while also prohibiting anyone who is handing out leaflets, displaying signs, offering counseling, or other information from getting within eight feet of someone entering or exiting, unless that person consents. That eight-foot barrier would be in effect within a 100-foot radius outside the facility.
“Los Angeles County has a responsibility to ensure our community members can safely receive medical care, practice their faith or access their schools,” said Board of Supervisors Chair Lindsey Horvath, 3rd District, who authored the motion. “Even here in Los Angeles County, we have seen how intimidation is used to prevent community members from entering facilities to receive essential services – bubble zones are how we meaningfully protect personal safety.”
READ: New York county suddenly reconsiders abortion facility buffer zone law
One pro-life volunteer spoke against the proposed ordinance during the Aug. 6 Board of Supervisors meeting.
“Buffer zones are designed to put me in jail, and they take away the right for pregnant women to hear their options,” said Teresa Saydah. “I am one of the pro-life volunteers who stand outside abortion centers. I offer a brochure on free service as I say, ‘If you know anyone’s who’s pregnant, here are some free resources. I would love to help you.’ For that, I would be put in jail. Buffer zones also limit the ability for pregnant women to have a compassionate conversation about their options, and it denies them information on resources available to assist them at pregnancy help centers and in their community.”
Conversely, the move was praised by a representative from Planned Parenthood. Celinda Vasquez thanked board members for “creating L.A. County as a safe haven and further protecting the patients and the workforce that provides basic health care every single day to your county residents.”
“We have seen a terrible, terrible increase in threats – safety threats – to the people who are simply accessing basic health care,” she said. “And in a post-Dobbs world, your actions [will] build again upon the safe haven.”
In 2023, a federal judge struck down a 2021 state law in California signed by Governor Gavin Newsom which had “created a 100-foot buffer zone around any vaccine administration site and banned free-speech activities within 30 feet of any person who is within 100 feet of the vaccine site,” according to a previous article by Live Action News.
“Harassment” included approaching or even simply standing with in 30 feet to “pass[] a leaflet or handbill to, display[] a sign to, or engage[] in oral protest, education, or counseling with, that other person in a public way or on a sidewalk area.” And because abortion facilities were at that time administering vaccines including shots for COVID-19, the law was penalizing the free speech of pro-life sidewalk counselors.
Other areas in the state have passed or intensified existing buffer zone ordinances to prevent pro-life outreach near abortion businesses.
