Supreme Court Urged to Take MA Case & Protect Pro-Life Speech

We've filed an important amicus brief asking the Supreme Court of the United States to hear the case of McCullen v. Coakley, a First Amendment challenge to the Massachusetts anti-speech buffer zone statute that hamstrings pro-life sidewalk counselors outside abortion businesses.

In the McCullen case, pro-life sidewalk counselors Eleanor McCullen, Jean Blackburn Zarrella, and three others brought a federal constitutional challenge to a Massachusetts statute that creates a 35-foot no-speech zone around abortion facilities. After a federal district court and court of appeals rejected the challenge, McCullen and her fellow counselors petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case.

The fact is that pro-lifers are not second-class citizens under the Constitution. The Supreme Court needs to step in and put a stop to the recurring problem of hostile government bodies putting gags on pro-life speakers.

In our brief urging the high court to take the case, we point out that ever since the Supreme Courts unfortunate 6-3 decision in the 2000 case of Hill v. Colorado, which rejected an ACLJ challenge to a Colorado bubble zone law, the law of free speech has been deeply unsettled.  Our friend-of-the-court brief explains that the Hill decision is irreconcilable with numerous prior decisions of this Court, and thus has had a destabilizing effect on the law.

In particular, our brief notes, the Hill majority (1) presumed that those approaching abortion businesses were unwilling to receive the message pro-life counselors offer (even though in fact some women considering abortion do take pro-life leaflets or spoken messages and even change their minds), (2) ruled that a restriction on sidewalk counseling is content-neutral even though other messages are allowed, (3) upheld extremely restrictive limits on leaflet distribution, and (4) okayed the idea of restricting even peaceful, protected speech in order to reduce instances of abusive conduct. As our brief points out, each of these four notions is totally inconsistent with a host of other long-standing Supreme Court precedents on free speech.

Recalling that Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his dissent in Hill, called the majority opinion in Hill antithetical to our entire First Amendment tradition, our brief urges the Supreme Court to grant review and overrule Hill before it further corrodes the fabric of the law.

You can read our amicus brief here. 

The Supreme Court may announce in March whether it will hear the McCullen case.  We will keep you posted on this very important pro-life case.