The pro-life community has won a battle against buffer zones around abortion clinics.
At issue before the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was an ordinance in Pittsburgh severely restricting activities of pro-life counselors. Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) senior counsel David Cortman tells OneNewsNow the problem with the law was that it established a fixed, and then a floating buffer zone. "So the fixed zone is a circle drawn 15 feet around the door where no pro-life advocate can enter. On top of that zone, as if it was not restrictive enough, they've also added [that] within 100 feet of every clinic in the city, you were not able to approach another person on a public sidewalk unless you get prior consent from the person," Cortman reports. Buffer or "bubble" zone laws have been a critical problem in the pro-life movement, but the ADF attorney says the good news is he believes the court's decision for a permanent injunction on the ordinance could impact other areas of the country. "The reason is that it analyzes not only the Circuit precedent that's in existence, but also the Supreme Court precedent," explains Cortman. "And the court reaches not only a proper decision, but one that analyzes what the Supreme Court has already held in this area. So it's a proper application of what the Supreme Court has already held." The Third Circuit ruled that the ordinance in question placed a substantial burden on the free-speech rights of pro-life counselors, describing it as "unduly -- and unconstitutionally -- onerous."
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