In a loss for abortion opponents, the US supreme court on Monday declined to take up two cases involving “buffer zone” ordinances, which limit protests around abortion clinics and which anti-abortion activists have spent years trying to dismantle.
The two cases dealt with buffer zone ordinances passed by the cities of Carbondale, Illinois, and Englewood, New Jersey. In filings to the supreme court, which is dominated 6-3 by conservatives, anti-abortion activists argued that these ordinances ran afoul of the first amendment’s guarantees of free speech. They also asked the justices to overturn a 2000 ruling called Hill v Colorado, which upheld a buffer zone law in Colorado.
