This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
There's a Supreme Court precedent in Hill v. Colorado that comes out of that leftist and abortion-promoting state that cuts into the free speech rights of counselors who wish to persuade women not to abort their unborn children.
A case now has developed that allows a coalition of those counselors to ask the justices to reverse that agenda that appears to infringe on constitutionally backed freedoms.
A report from the Thomas More Society explains that pro-life advocates from Coalition Life, the "nation's largest professional sidewalk counseling organization," are requesting the high court's intervention in their case.
The petition for certiorari was filed on behalf of Coalition Life in the organization's fight with the city of Carbondale, Illinois.
Helping in the fight for the pro-life agenda is former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement.
"For nearly a quarter of a century, sidewalk counselors like those who work with Coalition Life have been forced to live with 'an entirely separate, abridged edition of the First Amendment' when it comes to the kind of peaceful, conversational speech outside an abortion facility in which they wish to engage," Clement explained.
The case developed following 2023 when Carbondale, Illinois, adopted a "bubble zone" law that limits Americans' speech on a particular topic in a particular location.
The restriction applied to public sidewalks outside "hospitals, medical clinics, and healthcare facilities" to include Carbondale's three abortion businesses.
It was modeled on Colorado's earlier censorship scheme in Hill.
That lets governments ban "the peaceful life-affirming speech of pro-life advocates on public sidewalks. Since the Supreme Court's decision in Hill, similar laws aimed at chilling pro-life speech near abortion facilities have proliferated nationwide, especially in abortion-permissive municipalities, and states such as Montana and New Hampshire," the legal team explained.
The counselors sued Carbondale in March 2024, and a federal court opened the path to the Supreme Court by saying it could not rule against the Hill precedent.
The society's lawyers said, "Since the Supreme Court decided Hill in 2000, the case has come under fire for being out of step with the First Amendment and a prime example of the 'abortion distortion' factor in case law. The Supreme Court itself, in its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, singled out Hill as the leading example of the court's abortion precedents having 'distorted First Amendment doctrines'—suggesting its readiness to revisit the constitutionality of speech-restricting 'bubble zone' laws."
Carbondale has developed an abortion industry because of its proximity to nearby states with abortion restrictions.
"Now that the Supreme Court has returned the abortion debate to the people and their legislators, it is more important than ever to restore the free speech rights of those who advocate for life in the public square," explained Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive vice president.
"Hill v. Colorado was egregiously wrong on the day it was decided, and it remains a black mark in our law to this day. In the decades since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Hill, the Court has steadily eroded Hill's shaky foundations in more recent First Amendment cases and, in the majority opinion which overturned Roe v. Wade, sounded the death knell for Hill's distortion of our bedrock First Amendment principles."
He said, "'Bubble zones,' like the one in Carbondale, are an unconstitutional and overzealous attempt to show favor to abortion businesses, at the expense of the free speech rights of folks who seek to offer information, alternatives, and resources to pregnant women in need. It's time to end, once and for all, the political gamesmanship places like Carbondale play with our free speech rights."
