Pro-Life Sidewalk Counseling Protected, More Babies May Live

On June 26, 2014, in a 9-0 decision, the United States Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts criminal law that created a thirty-five foot buffer zone in front of abortion clinics. The effect of the buffer zone—and undoubtedly the purpose as well—was to prevent pro-life sidewalk counselors from having close access to women on public sidewalks to explain abortion alternatives in a caring, personal, and non-confrontational way.

Although pro-lifers were not allowed within the zone, the law allowed abortion clinic workers to be there and express their pro-abortion, anti-life message on the public sidewalks.

By establishing such a large buffer zone, the law silenced an effective pro-life message. Sidewalk counselors could not walk up to women to speak with them. They would have to yell to be heard. Such an approach does not convey the welcoming message to the recipient that is the intent of the sidewalk counselor. And, because of the thirty-five foot distance, sidewalk counselors could no longer hand out literature explaining alternatives to abortion, fetal development, etc.

In effect, the Massachusetts law handed the public sidewalk in front of abortion clinics over to pro-abortion advocates and their message.

The Obama Administration supported the law at the Supreme Court, as did pro-abortion groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America, NOW, and the National Abortion Federation. We, at the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), filed a brief against the law.

I have been representing pro-life sidewalk counselors for about fifteen years in and out of court. Here is just one of many stories, previously made public, about the effectiveness of sidewalk counseling.

A pro-lifer I represented would stand on the public sidewalk outside an abortion clinic a couple days a week no matter the weather. One hot summer’s day a woman in her early twenties stopped her car in front of the clinic, got out, and handed my client an unopened bottle of soda. An older woman was sitting in the passenger seat.

The young woman said she thought my client would like the soda on that hot day and wanted to show her something. They walked over to the car and the young woman pointed to an infant who was in a car seat.

The woman explained that during the previous winter she had come to the clinic to have an abortion. It was a bitterly cold day, but my client was standing outside. They spoke briefly, with my client asking the woman not to make the mistake of aborting her child and offering any help the woman needed to carry the child to term.

The pregnant, unwed woman walked into the clinic and sat there for a while, thinking about what my client had told her and about how important the issue must be to my client for her to stand outside in the middle of winter to express it to complete strangers. The woman went home and thought more about her decision. She decided not to abort her child, a decision her parents supported.

As she pointed to the infant in the backseat, the young woman thanked my client for helping her make the best decision of her life. The older woman sitting in the front seat, who was the young woman’s mother and the child’s grandmother, also thanked my client.

This story, one of many success stories, illustrates that pro-life sidewalk counseling is an important and effective part of the pro-life movement. That is why pro-abortion supporters continue to try and stop it.

Through sidewalk counseling, pro-lifers can effectively convey their message to women who are contemplating abortion and present them with information the abortion industry will not provide--for example, that their unborn child is a living person, not a blob of tissue that does not feel pain when killed, and that there are people who will help them and their child during and after the pregnancy.

The Supreme Court’s decision sends the message that government should not censor the pro-life message of hope to women in difficult situations, as Massachusetts attempted to do here.

The ACLJ has been defending the rights of pro-lifers for many years, and we will continue to do so.