WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Justice Clarence Thomas criticized his peers for allowing “bubble zones” outside of abortion facilities to stand.
Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Justice Thomas ripped his fellow justices for an “abdication” of their “judicial duty” in allowing restrictions on pro-life speech to continue. The court once again declined to hear a challenge brought by Coalition Life against the city of Carbondale, Illinois, which had a law that appeared directed at pro-life sidewalk counselors and advocates.
The city “had enacted a 100-foot bubble zone ordinance in response to the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” according to the Thomas More Society, which represented the pro-life advocates.
The city’s ordinance mirrored an upheld Colorado statute that “made it a crime for any person, within 100 feet of any ‘health-care facility’ entrance, to ‘knowingly approach’ within 8 feet of another person, without that person’s consent, ‘for the purpose of passing a leaflet or handbill to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling with such other person,” as Justice Thomas wrote, citing the state law.
The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to not hear the case allows a 2000 ruling, Hill v. Colorado, to stand. That case allowed Colorado’s law to stand. Curiously, as Thomas pointed out, the Supreme Court struck down a similar law in 2014, but it has yet to strike down Colorado’s law and the court precedent. In 2023, the Supreme Court also declined to hear a challenge to a “buffer zone,” this time in Westchester County, New York.
Much like Carbondale, the county repealed the ordinance as the challenge worked its way up to the nation’s highest court, potentially indicating a fear that SCOTUS would rule in favor of the free speech rights of pro-life citizens.
In 2014, as Thomas wrote, SCOTUS “unanimously held unconstitutional a Massachusetts law that prohibited anyone from entering a 35-foot buffer zone around an abortion facility.”
The court ruled the “buffer zone” was “content neutral” but was “not sufficiently narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest because it places too great a burden on the petitioners’ First Amendment Rights,” according to the summary on legal website Oyez.
The 9-0 vote included five justices who are still on the Supreme Court today – Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Samuel Alito, and Thomas. Justice Alito also would have taken up the Carbondale case.
Justice Thomas said Hill has been “seriously undermined, if not completely eroded, and our refusal to provide clarity is an abdication of our judicial duty.”
As he pointed out, lower courts are still looking to Hill when interpreting “bubble zone” laws. For example, then-Judge Amy Coney Barrett joined in a decision about Chicago’s 50-foot zone, saying that Hill “remains binding on us,” while highlighting the confusion of other Supreme Court rulings.
Sidewalk counselors, along with women, babies, and families, are harmed by the speech restrictions, according to the plaintiffs.
“As we expand our operations to serve more women across the United States, we will continue to go wherever we are called. Our appeal may have been denied but across this nation, at hundreds of abortion facilities, a different sort of tragic ‘denial’ continues,” Brian Westbrook, founder and executive director of Coalition Life stated in a news release.
“Cities and states across America are denying sidewalk counselors and law-abiding citizens their rights to inform women about their options,” Westbrook stated. “Women are being denied true choice as they are bullied into the only option that is offered by the abortion advocates.”
There is much evidence showing that protesting and sidewalk counseling outside of abortion facilities can save lives. For example, the pro-life organization 40 Days for Life has reported that its outreach has saved at least 25,000 babies as of October 2024.
Legal scholars have also concluded that Hill should no longer stand.
“Hill allowed a state to prohibit sharing of ideas on the topic of abortion with women traveling to and from an abortion clinic,” Claremont Institute attorneys John Eastman and Anthony Caso wrote in an amicus brief. “In the decades since that decision, government and private actors have become more brazen in their attempts to shut down disfavored speech,” they wrote, citing government censorship of disfavored speakers.
The legal experts reviewed American history to show how Carbondale’s restrictions clearly violate the First Amendment.
“The whole purpose of this ordinance is to suppress not only a particular viewpoint (promoting life for the unborn child), but also information about the effects of abortion procedures on the mother,” they wrote.
“The city has taken a side in this debate and actively censors all those that disagree.”