Supreme Court turns back challenges to laws keeping abortion opponents away from clinics, patients

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a pair of cases from abortion opponents who say laws limiting anti-abortion demonstrations near clinics violate their First Amendment rights.

The majority did not explain their reasoning for turning down the appeals, as is typical, but two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, disagreed.

The cities said the laws were passed to address disturbing behavior from protesters outside of health care clinics. But anti-abortion activists said the measures violate free-speech rights and should be on their “deathbed” after the justices overturned Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion.

One case comes from Carbondale, Illinois, which is located near the state’s southern border and passed an ordinance after becoming a destination for patients from nearby states with abortion bans. The measure was quickly challenged in court, and has never been enforced. The city argued the appeal should be tossed because the ordinance was repealed shortly before abortion opponents went to the Supreme Court.

The other case is from New Jersey, where activist Jeryl Turco says she has approached women in Englewood for years to try to convince them not to have abortions. She says an 8-foot demonstration-free zone the city passed in 2014 in response to an aggressive group of protesters also wrongly kept her from approaching women.

Englewood argues that Turco has still been able to share her message outside of the immediate area near clinic entrances. Lower courts have ultimately upheld the ordinance, finding it isn’t a major First Amendment burden.

Both challengers pointed out that the high court struck down a Massachusetts law creating 35-foot demonstration free “buffer zones” around clinic doors in 2014. They say the Illinois and New Jersey laws should meet the same fate.

But cities say their rules are in line with a different Supreme Court decision from 2000, when the high court allowed a Colorado law to stand. It barred people from getting within 8 feet of others without permission in a 100-foot “bubble zone” around clinics.

Thomas said that case, known as Hill v. Colorado, was wrongly decided. In a dissent from the decision to decline the Illinois case, he said that the court wrongly treated it differently than other First Amendment cases because abortion was involved. “Hill has been seriously undermined, if not completely eroded, and our refusal to provide clarity is an abdication of our judicial duty,” he wrote.