Pro-life group asks Supreme Court to restore speech rights

A pro-life advocacy group is appealing to the Supreme Court in defense of its First Amendment right to speak to women outside of abortion facilities. Coalition Life, a professional sidewalk counseling organization, filed a petition for writ of certiorari last week.

The organization is contesting a “bubble zone” law in Carbondale, Ill., that restricts speech within a 100-foot area around abortion centers and healthcare facilities in the city. The law, passed in January 2023, effectively bars advocates from sharing pro-life perspectives with people outside of the centers.

The southern Illinois college town is a hub for women seeking abortions in the Midwest and Southeast, said Peter Breen, executive vice president at Thomas More Society, which represents Coalition Life. The town had no abortion centers two years ago. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, three facilities have opened, according to Thomas More.

Prior to the bubble zone law, Coalition Life volunteers educated, counseled, prayed, displayed signs, and distributed literature to people outside of abortion centers. The group instructs its volunteers not to threaten or intimidate others, according to the appeal.

The volunteers act as a “last line of defense for the unborn,” the organization’s website said. Carbondale’s new law bars the volunteers from their work.

In May 2023, Coalition Life sued the city but lost its case in a lower court. The organization appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In March 2024, the court ruled against the advocacy group.

The 7th Circuit found that the Supreme Court’s prior decision in 2000 in Hill v. Colorado must dictate its ruling in the Coalition Life case. In Hill, the high court upheld a “bubble zone” law nearly identical to Carbondale’s.

Now, Coalition Life is appealing to the Supreme Court to undo its decision in Hill and restore fundamental First Amendment rights, Breen said.

“This decision has plagued the pro-life movement for nearly a quarter-century,” Breen said. “We are hoping that by … wiping away Hill v. Colorado we can truly clear a space so that pro-life advocates can talk to women in need and get them the assistance they need, get them the alternatives they need.”

The Hill case centers on whether bubble zone laws engage in neutral speech restriction or target specific viewpoints and perspectives, said Brad Jacob, associate dean for academic programs at Regent University School of Law.

In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that because Colorado’s law restricts all speech outside of medical facilities, it was neutral and legal, Jacob said. The dissenting justices noted, though, that the only people speaking outside of abortion centers were pro-life activists.

In reality, bubble zone laws are “designed to stamp out pro-life speech,” Jacob said.

The Carbondale case gives the court the ideal opportunity to overturn Hill, Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general, said in the appeal.

“The question for this court thus is not so much whether, as when, Hill should be overruled. The time is now,” Clement wrote. He also noted that the ruling in Hill has been heavily criticized, even by Supreme Court justices and left-leaning legal scholars.

For instance, in its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the high court listed Hill as a leading example of how the court’s abortion precedents have “distorted First Amendment doctrines.”

“The ‘bubble zone’ ordinance has been nothing more than the continued and relentless persecution of our team on the sidewalk,” Brian Westbrook, executive director and founder of Coalition Life, said in a news release. “This fight won’t be over until Hill is overturned and thousands of municipalities across the nation, like Carbondale, understand you cannot trample on our rights.”

The Hill decision affects pro-life groups across the country, Breen said. San Diego enacted a similar law this month, and Chicago did last year.

Lower courts have issued mixed rulings on bubble zone laws. In 2022, a federal judge struck down a similar law in Louisville, Ky. But in 2019, a federal appeals court upheld a 15-foot buffer zone outside Pittsburgh abortion facilities, though the court said the law did not bar peaceful, one-on-one conversations.

There is a clear need for the Supreme Court to hear Carbondale’s case and undo its Hill decision, Breen said.

“This issue is ready to be decided by the Supreme Court, they need to step in,” Breen said. “If they reverse Hill v. Colorado … that would be a great win, putting pro-life advocacy on the same footing as any other advocacy, putting pro-life speech on the same level as any other speech.”