High court to consider clinic buffer zones

A Colorado law restricting access to patients and staff entering abortion clinics appropriately balances patients' rights and those of anti-abortion protesters, AMA officials contend.

By Sarah A. Klein, amednews staff. Jan. 17, 2000.

The AMA and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are squaring off against free speech advocates in a case that will determine whether Colorado residents can have undisturbed access to abortion clinics and other medical facilities.

The case, which will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this year, considers the constitutionality of Colorado's bubble law, a 1993 statute that prevents protestors and sidewalk counselors from coming within eight feet of patients and staff at medical clinics once they are inside a 100-foot radius of the facility's entrance.

The law, which was designed to ensure safe access to health services during aggressive and sometimes violent demonstrations, has been challenged by abortion opponents. They say conditions imposed on their protests are a violation of their right to free speech. They have the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and a host of other groups, including unions and animal rights activists who are concerned that the law will prevent them from delivering their message.

"Under [the law], an evangelist distributing gospel tracts, a pizzeria employee distributing discount coupons, or a nurse distributing flyers to explain a strike for improved working conditions, who are within 100 feet of any entrance door to any health care facility in Colorado, are prohibited from freely approaching closer than 8 feet to any other person if they want to offer their materials, or even just to speak to passersby," wrote Jay Alan Sekulow, the attorney representing the three protestors in the case of Leila Jeanne Hill et al. v. The State of Colorado et al.

State says its statute balances rights

The AMA and ACOG are siding with the state of Colorado, which argues the statute balances patients' rights to privacy and health care access with the constitutional rights of the demonstrators.

The state contends the law allows protestors the opportunity to communicate their views, but "blocks the overly close approaches of unconsenting targets of demonstrators, conduct which crowded and threatened vulnerable medical patients."

Such a buffer is necessary, the state and the medical societies argued, to reduce stress and the medical complications of patients.

"The AMA is concerned that medical procedures which are lawful ... be available to those who need them," said John C. Nelson, MD, a Salt Lake City obstetrician-gynecologist and AMA trustee.

"We have concerns that in this particular case it could appear that individuals who felt they needed or wanted this procedure done, couldn't get it done," said Dr. Nelson, who added that the AMA is officially neutral on the issue of abortion.

The Supreme Court's previous opinions on buffer zones have been split.

In two recent cases, the justices struck down the use of floating buffer zones around people and vehicles approaching clinics, saying they were an overly restrictive burden on free speech. But the court has upheld fixed buffer zones at the clinic entrances.

The justices upheld the use of a 36-foot buffer zone at the entrance of an abortion clinic in Melbourne, Fla., and a 15-foot buffer at entrances and driveways of women's health clinics in Buffalo and Rochester, N.Y. But the justices voted 8-1 against requiring sidewalk demonstrators to stay 15 feet away from patients and stop counseling upon request.

On streets and sidewalks, "our citizens must tolerate insulting, even outrageous, speech in order to provide adequate breathing space to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote in the New York case.

The ACLU believes the Colorado law deprives protestors of that right. The law "makes even traditional First Amendment advocacy on the public streets a matter of grace rather than a right," wrote Steven R. Shapiro, the ACLU's attorney.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Case at a glance

Leila Jeanne Hill et al. v. The State of Colorado, Bill Owens, Governor, et al.

Venue: U.S. Supreme Court

Case No.: 98-1865

At issue: Whether Colorado law requiring an eight-foot buffer zone around patients and staff entering and exiting medical facilities, including abortion clinics, violates the First Amendment rights of protestors.

Potential impact: A ruling in favor of Hill would strike down the third such attempt to control the activities of abortion foes outside medical facilities.