Supreme Court leaves in place abortion-clinic buffer zones

Greg Stohr, Bloomberg News on Feb 24, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a setback to abortion opponents, refusing to reconsider a 2000 decision that lets states and cities create protective zones to shield patients from being approached near clinic entrances.

Sidestepping what would likely have been a polarizing fight, the justices turned away two appeals that said the restrictions outside clinics violate the free-speech rights of abortion opponents who want to talk to women as they enter facilities. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have heard both cases.

Abortion foes have been urging the court for years to overturn the 2000 Hill v. Colorado ruling, which upheld an 8-foot bubble zone around people when they are near a clinic door. Although the justices rejected similar appeals previously, the latest rebuffs are the first since the court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.

Thomas said in a dissenting opinion that Hill “has been seriously undermined, if not completely eroded” by later Supreme Court rulings, “and our refusal to provide clarity is an abdication of our judicial duty.”

As is its custom, the court as a whole gave no explanation for turning away the appeals. It takes the votes of four justices for the court to hear an appeal.

The lineup was notable because two other conservative justices — Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — had previously joined Thomas in criticizing the Hill ruling.

One of the rejected appeals involved a Carbondale, Illinois, law that was modeled after the Colorado measure but is no longer on the books. Carbondale repealed its law days before opponents filed their Supreme Court appeal.

The other case concerned an Englewood, New Jersey, ordinance that works differently, restricting who can come within eight feet of a clinic entrance during business hours. Federal appeals courts upheld both measures.

The Supreme Court last considered speech rights outside abortion clinics in 2014, when the justices struck down a Massachusetts law that created a 35-foot buffer zone around clinic entrances. That ruling was unanimous, but the court divided in its reasoning.

The cases are Turco v. Englewood, 23-1189, and Coalition Life v. Carbondale, 24-57.