Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away two appeals from abortion rights opponents asking the justices to overrule a 25-year-old decision that allowed for buffer zones around abortion clinics, leaving that ruling in place.
In declining to wade into the court fight, the justices will not add a second abortion-related case to their current docket, following two terms in which the issue was before them. Last June, the court rebuffed two separate challenges involving abortion — the first over access to a popular pill used in medication abortions, and the second over how Idaho’s near-total ban on the procedure interacts with a federal emergency care law.
In June 2022, the court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade. Citing that landmark decision, anti-abortion rights groups had called on the Supreme Court to reverse its 2000 ruling in the case Hill v. Colorado, which involved buffer zones outside facilities to perform abortions.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have granted the requests to hear the cases. In a dissent from the Supreme Court’s denial of the appeal in one of those disputes, involving an ordinance passed by the city council in Carbondale, Illinois, Thomas said the high court should make clear that its 2000 decision “lacks continuing force” and should be explicitly overturned.
The decision in Hill v. Colorado “has been seriously undermined, if not completely eroded, and our refusal to provide clarity is an abdication of our judicial duty,” he wrote.
The ordinance enacted in Carbondale came just six months after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority rolled back the constitutional right to abortion. Known as the “Disorderly Conduct Ordinance,” the restriction was put in place in response to the high court’s ruling, as reproductive health care clinics in the city reported an uptick of threats and acts of intimidation by people protesting abortion access.
Illinois law protects the right to abortion, and Planned Parenthood opened a new facility in Carbondale in December 2023 as the state saw a spike in patients seeking abortion care from neighboring states that restricted abortion after Roe’s reversal. Two other clinics were also opened in the city, which is located in southern Illinois near the Missouri border.
Carbondale’s measure created a 100-foot buffer zone around the entrance to health care facilities. Activists were prohibited from coming within eight feet of a person to give them a “leaflet or handbill,” display a sign or engage in “oral protest, education or counseling” inside the perimeter.
The ordinance took effect in January 2023 but was repealed several months later. The Carbondale City Council said it had not been enforced against any potential violator.
Before the measure was rolled back, the Missouri-based group Coalition Life challenged it, arguing it violates the First Amendment. Coalition Life organizes sidewalk counselors who seek to provide information and assistance to women approaching abortion clinics, including alternatives to terminating their pregnancies.
The group has said their goal is to speak to the patients one-on-one and they believe it’s necessary to get close to them “so they can make eye-contact and speak from a normal conversational distance in a friendly and gentle manner.” Carbondale’s ordinance, however, hindered their ability to do so.
A federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit agreed to dismiss the case, citing the Supreme Court’s 2000 decision in the case Hill v. Colorado. The decision upheld a state law that barred activists from coming closer than eight feet of a person entering an abortion clinic to engage in protest, counseling or education unless they obtained their permission.
The court has heard one other case involving buffer zones outside of abortion clinics since its ruling nearly 25 years ago. In 2014, the high court unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law that established a 35-foot buffer zone around medical facilities where abortions are performed. The law exempted four categories of people: those entering or exiting the facility; employees; law enforcement or other public workers; and people using the public sidewalk or right-of-way covered by the buffer zone to get to another destination.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2000, its makeup has shifted significantly. Conservatives now hold a 6-3 majority, and only one of the justices who heard that case, Thomas, is still on the bench. He joined the late Justice Antonin Scalia and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy in dissent.
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