Pro-life advocates from the organization Coalition Life have announced that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has declined to hear a case in which the pro-lifers were challenging a ‘buffer zone’ law limiting pro-life activity outside of Carbondale, Illinois abortion facilities.
In July 2024, the pro-lifers, represented by the Thomas More Society, filed a petition asking SCOTUS to overturn its 2000 decision in Hill v. Colorado. That ruling upheld a 1993 Colorado statute preventing pro-life sidewalk counselors from being within eight feet of the entrance of an abortion business without consent to protest, educate, counsel, or distribute information. Nationwide, many municipalities have implemented “buffer zones” outside abortion facilities based on the precedent established by Hill, including the city of Carbondale, Illinois.
Three abortion facilities opened in Carbondale following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and the city quickly implemented an extensive buffer zone with a large 100-foot radius around “any entrance door” to a “hospital, medical clinic or healthcare facility” in the city.
The buffer zone limited the work of Coalition Life advocates, but they were hopeful that a SCOTUS review of the case would ultimately reestablish the First Amendment rights of free speech to pro-life sidewalk counselors not only in Carbondale but around the country. Hopes were dashed when the city scheduled a last-minute meeting Saturday and repealed its ordinance, therefore limiting the chance that SCOTUS would take up the case.
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“On the eve of our petition deadline, Carbondale quietly repealed its bubble zone ordinance in a shadowy, four-minute, weekend meeting, knowing full well their bubble zone would fail constitutional scrutiny if it came before the Supreme Court,” explained Peter Breen, Thomas More Society Vice President & Head of Litigation.
“While our clients are now able to sidewalk counsel freely in Carbondale, the city flagrantly violated their Free Speech rights for eighteen months, without penalty. And pro-abortion government bodies in many other cities across the country continue to unconstitutionally restrict the speech of pro-life sidewalk counselors. This game of legal Whac-A-Mole is an unsustainable dynamic, and the only solution is for the Court to overrule Hill once and for all.”
Though the Court declined to take up the case, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito both said that they would have heard the challenge. “Hill has been seriously undermined, if not completely eroded, and our refusal to provide clarity is an abdication of our judicial duty,” Justice Thomas wrote. “I would have taken this opportunity to explicitly overrule Hill.”
Coalition Life sidewalk advocates will resume ministering to women in Carbondale, though they are disappointed at the missed opportunity for the overturn of Hill.
“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.”
