The agenda adopted by multiple cities across the nation to give special protections to their communities’ abortion businesses has taken a serious blow in a ruling from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
That court blocked a Clearwater, Florida, ordinance that banned people from a public sidewalk in order to cater to an abortion business.
In fact, the ruling noted that evidence showed the ordinance specifically was applied to pro-life members of the community.
According to a report from Liberty Counsel, the appeals court “ordered a preliminary injunction against a city ordinance in Clearwater, Florida, that created a pedestrian ‘buffer zone’ outside an abortion facility.”
Those buffer zones have been used repeatedly across the United States to censor Americans’ speech and limit their access to public property.
It’s all done in the name of “protecting” abortion businesses from the words and ideas of those who oppose abortion and protest on public properties.
The 2-1 decision reversed a lower court’s denial for an injunction sought by a group of sidewalk counselors and ordered the lower court to grant the injunction while the litigation continues toward a permanent decision.
The appeals court confirmed the counselors were “likely to succeed on the merits” since the buffer zone “stifled” their First Amendment right to convey their pro-life message in a public place.
The 2023 ordinance was characterized by city officials as a “vehicular safety zone” that barred pedestrians from using a portion of a public sidewalk within five feet of the driveway of the abortion business Bread and Roses Woman’s Health Center during business hours.
Clearwater police officers testified that the ordinance purportedly barred all pedestrians from the property, exempting only first responders and certain clinic personnel. But in fact officers usually “allowed ordinary passersby” to go through, leaving their targeting for those protesting abortion.
City officials had claimed their protections for the abortion business were to ensure patient safety and prevent traffic obstruction.
But the lawsuit was filed because the city was violating their First Amendment rights by restricting counseling and leafletting on a public right of way.
Writing for the majority, Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom cited U.S. Supreme Court precedent from the 2014 McCullen v. Coakley decision, which struck down a Massachusetts buffer zone law, that stated the government’s ability to restrict speech in a public forum is “very limited” and any law doing so must be “narrowly tailored.”
Newsom said the Supreme Court has recognized normal conversation and leafletting on a public sidewalk as two forms of expression protected under the First Amendment.
“The prime objective of the First Amendment is not efficiency,” Newsom explained. “The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”
Liberty Counsel chief Mat Staver said, “This ruling from the Eleventh Circuit marks a significant victory for sidewalk counselors and free speech advocates. Public sidewalks have always been protected places where people can gather to participate in the peaceful exchange of ideas. Abortion buffer zone laws collide with free speech and hinder women and girls from receiving information that could change their fateful decisions to end the life of their child. This recent decision should be an encouragement to pro-life sidewalk counselors around the country.”
The court ruling noted that there had, in fact, been a problem with someone parking in the driveway and blocking it. That was, the ruling said, when “a clinic patron parked and then approached the sidewalk counselors – but he did so to assault a counselor, not to receive literature.
