For the past 15 years, Jeryl Turco has done "sidewalk counseling" on the public sidewalks outside the Metropolitan Medical Associates abortion business in Englewood, New Jersey. Jeryl, and counselors like her engage in gentle, personal dialogues with women entering abortion clinics, providing them with alternative options and support. These counselors operate from a place of deep concern for women and the unborn, striving to present information and care that are not available within abortion clinics.
In 2013, however, the city decided to take action to curtail Turco's efforts, and enacted buffer zones to ban pro-life speech around abortion clinics.
Shortly after the Englewood law went into effect, the U.S. Supreme Court – unanimously – struck down a buffer zone law in Massachusetts (McCullen v. Coakley) as a violation of the free speech rights of pro-life sidewalk counselors.
In the aftermath of this ruling, other states soon followed in repealing buffer zone laws, but not Englewood.
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), - an organization dedicated to the defense of consitutional liberties secured by law - which has a history of fervently defending pro-life speech, especially the free speech rights of sidewalk counselors, stepped in, and sued the city.
ACLJ attorneys argued that, like the Massachusetts law struck down in McCullen, Englewood's law was excessively broad and unconstitutional, not a narrowly tailored regulation. It burdened far more speech than was necessary to further the city's interest in ensuring access to health care facilities. In addition, the city could not show that, before enacting the no-speech zones, it had tried or seriously considered and reasonably rejected less restrictive alternatives (such as the ones suggested in McCullen).
The case saw an initial win in the trial court, but that decision was overturned by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, leading to a bench trial in February 2022. During the trial, Jeryl highlighted the challenges the buffer zones created for her counseling efforts. The City, however, justified its ordinance on grounds of financial constraints and confidentiality. The district court ruled in favor of the City in August 2022, a decision later upheld by the Third Circuit, citing the Supreme Court’s Hill v. Colorado (an oft-criticized decision of the Supreme Court that upheld floating bubble zones around persons within 100 feet of a healthcare facility) decision as a basis for its ruling.
Undeterred, the ACLJ petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review this decision, arguing that in affirming the trial court’s decision, the Third Circuit failed to note that just a year before, the Supreme Court actually described Hill as a distortion of First Amendment doctrines, and also to consider that in Sisters for Life v. Louisville-Jefferson County, a case where the ACLJ represents two sidewalk counselors, the Sixth Circuit ordered the district court to enter a preliminary injunction against Louisville’s buffer zone law around all health care facilities.
Unfortunately for Turco, our nation's highest court just slammed the door in her face.
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