Introduction

When Georgia, Alabama, Missouri, and a host of other states passed abortion laws seeking to provide more protections for unborn children, many were outraged.  A tidal wave of pro-life legislation had crested in response to changing tolerance for the acceptance of unfettered abortion access, as well as a growing understanding of the science related to infant viability.  Although these and future laws restricting and banning abortion will certainly be challenged in court, the march to restrict the wholesale slaughter of children will continue and the methods used will, no doubt, be creative in their efforts to protect unborn children.  While the initial points of this article note the various ways abortion restrictions have occurred both before and after the 1973 Roe v. Wade[1] decision, this article will look at the attempt to develop buffer zones associated with abortion clinics.  Buffer zones that act as a means for the pro-abortion lobby to curtail not only protest but to also limit free speech.

 

Abortion Restrictions

Restrictions to abortion access have occurred through various means for decades.  Anti-abortion statutes began to appear in the United States from the 1820s, targeting either herbs used to induce abortion or criminalizing abortions as both a felony and misdemeanor depending on the quickening stage of the pregnancy prior to the abortion.  Additional laws, such as the Comstock Law, passed in 1873 during the Grant administration, was part of a campaign, at that time, for legislating public morality and limiting access to birth control.[2]  In a 1938 case against Margaret Sanger, Judge August Hand lifted the federal ban on birth control, effectively ending the use of the Comstock Law.[3] By 1910 nearly every state had anti-abortion laws, although unevenly enforced.[4] Prior to Roe, between 1967 and 1973, 14 states reformed, and four states repealed restrictive abortion laws.  In 1970, New York became the first state to legalize abortion on demand through the 24th week of pregnancy, while Hawaii had earlier legalized abortion through 20 weeks, but only for residents of that state.  In the same year, Washington DC also allowed abortions, as did Alaska and Washington state.[5]

 

The pro-life movement as we know it today emerged after the 1973 Roe decision.[6]  And since the legalization of abortion, the pro-life lobby has undertaken efforts to limit access, using a variety of tactics, including strategic changes in both state and federal abortion regulation policy.  The politics of abortion, coupled with abortion’s centrality to the ideology of various abortion advocacy groups have all combined to make the regulation of abortion a fixture within each states policy.[7]  The recent trend in abortion access restrictions has moved from more overt attempts to more indirect ones.[8]  And it is within the realm of the changing legislative and cultural environment surrounding abortion rhetoric that abortion restrictions changed to meet those demands.

 

Abortion Legalization: Setting the Stage for Restrictions

Prior to the 1960s, the pro-life lobby as a movement was all but nonexistent.  In 1959 a group of professionals from the American Law Institute, put together model legislation that advocated for the liberalization of abortion law, suggesting that law should make exceptions for rape, fetal abnormalities, and for women whose mental or physical health was at stake.[9]  With the cultural shift of the 1960s, Americans began to demand changes to abortion access at the state level.  Additionally, while pregnancy and childbirth had been somewhat sanitized and relegated to hospital deliveries, concepts of pregnancy and childbirth began to change with media attention on birth defects associated with Thalidomide, as well as an outbreak of German measles that produced thousands of stillbirths and birth defects across Europe and the United States, creating an environment of fear.[10]  At play in this timeframe, a burgeoning second wave feminist movement focused on issues of equality and discrimination, arguing that women could not be full citizens without the ability to control reproduction.  The incessant drumbeat demanding women’s equality and access to abortion pushed several state legislatures to reform their abortion laws.  Colorado was the first to amend state law in 1967, followed quickly by California, and then New York’s famous reforms in 1970.[11]

 

Just as state legislatures began to acquiesce to abortion reform, the modern pro-life political movement began.  Starting in the late 1960s, small groups of Catholic doctors, nurses, lawyers, and housewives, as well as a smaller number of Protestants, Mormons, and Orthodox Christians, joined forces as a voice of opposition to legislative liberalization and open access to abortion.  In 1967, the then named National Council of Catholic Bishops supported the work of small groups of Catholics in opposition to abortion.  The bishop’s organization supported the formation of the National Right to Life Committee.[12]  As leadership associated with opposition to legalized abortion came primarily from Christian organizations, supporters of abortion reform developed messaging that insinuated any effort to stop abortion was an attempt to push religious values on the diverse American population.[13]  Despite the rhetoric against those opposed to abortion reform, the primary message of these initial pro-life advocates was one focused on rights issues rather than messaging related to religious values. 

 

It is important to consider changes that occurred within the pro-life movement as well as the political and cultural landscape in which these changes took place.  While the first stages of the pro-life movement had support from Catholic Bishops and was focused among a smaller number of activists, this changed as abortion became politicized and more a part of the American cultural fabric.  In the late 1970s and early 1980s, evangelical Christians joined the pro-life movement in great numbers.  While this acted to rejuvenate the movement, eventually the movement took a more radicalized tone.[14]  Early in the movement, even before the legalization of abortion in 1973, evangelical scholars, pastors, and physicians could not agree on the ethics of abortion.[15]  But by late 1970s and early 1980s, this sentiment had changed.  While Catholics long held that abortion was ethically wrong, as more and more evangelical laypeople and clergy entered the pro-life movement, they began to openly oppose legal abortion and spoke about its immoral characteristics.  Some simply joined existing pro-life groups, while others formed new groups.  Rejecting the politics of legislative reform, some of the newer groups took a more radical approach in efforts to eliminate legalized abortion. 

 

Most outspoken among these newer groups in this period of time was Operation Rescue.  This organization pioneered the pro-life rescue, a strategy in which thousands of pro-life advocates created human blockades in front of clinics.  Operation Rescue began as an organized pro-life movement on November 28, 1987, in a rescue at Cherry Hill, New Jersey, across the river from Philadelphia. Nearly 300 pro-life rescuers sealed off access to a building where abortions were performed.[16]  Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Operation Rescue performed rescues in cities across the nation.  While saving the lives of unborn children, opponents argued that such efforts overcrowd the city’s police departments by filling jails and requiring police presence which could be spent elsewhere.  Opponents also bemoaned the disruption of abortion access.  The efforts of Operation Rescue and its pro-life advocates attracted national media attention, raising awareness of the horrors of abortion, while also trying to stop abortions. 

 

Until Webster v. Reproductive Health Services,[17] attempts by states to limit the availability of abortion had been held unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade.[18] The efforts of Operation Rescue were different.  As one writer notes, the first purpose of Operation Rescue was:

 

To save unborn babies from death at the hands of the abortionists.  To do this, the effort is made to shut down one or more clinics for a day or even several days.  On the principle that 20 percent of women who are prevented from keeping their first appointment for an abortion will not make a second one, the Operation Rescue people estimate that by shutting down a "mill" that averages 35 "procedures" a day, they succeed in saving seven babies.[19]

 

While these were recognized as the core efforts of Operation Rescue, and their focus was one on stopping abortion at its source, the clinic, the media presented their efforts as a growing problem.  It was reported that between 1987 and the 2000s, stemming from the efforts of the pro-life movement and Operation Rescue, civil disobedience accounted for 153 assaults, 383 death threats, 3 kidnappings, 18 attempted murders, and 9 murders related to abortion providers.[20]

​

Clearly, Operation Rescue had made changes in the tactics of the pro-life movement.  However, while they brought attention to the clinics, others in the pro-life movement used other approaches to restrict abortion. 

 

Abortion Funding Restrictions

While many early pro-life groups failed to stop changes to various state abortion laws, there were some successes. 

 

In the years before the Roe[21] decision, pro-life activists focused on state legislatures and in that time, not all states were ready for abortion reform.  However, after the Roe decision, the apparent one-size-fits-all abortion law did not play well among many Americans. 

 

To limit the seeming federal overreach, the Hyde Amendment became a means of prohibiting federal funding of abortions through Medicaid.  Although the Hyde Amendment passed in 1977, the Reproductive Freedom Project, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Planned Parenthood stymied the initial implementation of the amendment.  These organizations represented a pregnant Medicaid recipient and health care providers who challenged the Hyde Amendment in the court case McRae v. Mathews,[22] which successfully blocked the amendment by a court injunction for nearly a year.  The United States Supreme Court vacated the injunction in August 1977 when it issued two decisions that upheld state limitations on the use of public funds for abortion.  With the Hyde Amendment in effect, abortions financed by federal Medicaid funds dropped.[23] After years of political and legal wrangling, in June 1980, in a five to four decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Hyde Amendment did not violate the United States Constitution by banning the use of federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortions.  The Supreme Court's ruling overturned the district court's initial decision, paving the way for the enforcement of the Hyde Amendment, which began in 1980.[24]

 

The pro-abortion lobby has worked hard to push the concept of exceptions for allowing abortion on demand and this concept has become part of not only newly enacted laws, but was also pivotal in the early days of funding the Hyde Amendment.  The pro-abortion lobby utilized an ongoing campaign for exceptions beyond those original to the Hyde Amendment.  Because of these demands and the campaign to make them part of the abortion dialog, the fiscal 1978 Hyde Amendment was new, even as it remained the same.  It contained new exceptions for victims of rape and incest and for women whose health would be severely damaged by carrying a pregnancy to term, even as it maintained the original exception for life endangerment.  However, in 1980 the Supreme Court decided Harris v. McRae[25] and upheld the constitutionality of the original Hyde Amendment language containing a single exception for life endangerment.[26]  From the second half of fiscal 1981 through fiscal 1993, Congress enacted the Hyde Amendment with the original language.  However, in fiscal 1994 and 1995, during the Clinton administration, the Hyde Amendment again contained exceptions for rape and incest victims.

 

The legal wrangling associated with the Hyde Amendment and its passage highlight the ongoing campaign concerning abortion access despite how that access is obtained.  The campaign by the pro-abortion lobby for abortion access continued into state legislatures despite the many states that imposed restrictions on the public funding for abortion.  In the mid-1970s states began to pass laws limiting the use of state Medicaid funds to pay for abortions.  Importantly, in the 1980 case Williams v. Zbaraz,[27] the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state versions of the Hyde Amendment.  While the ACLU and its allies have continually pursued new legal strategies to defeat state funding bans, they have succeeded in winning injunctions delaying, and in some cases preventing, the implementation of bans on state Medicaid funds to pay for abortions. 

 

Clinic Access Restrictions

In considering the work of the overall pro-life movement and the impact Operation Rescue had on the changing abortion dialogue in American culture and its politics, it is important to consider the evidence provided by the historical record of the role that acts of civil disobedience have played in altering and directing policies underlying American governmental laws.  Civil disobedience plays an important part of the American heritage, dating back to the very establishment of the country we now call the United States, and it has continued to provide a means for significant changes in the law and policies of this country without a need to resort to armed rebellion or anarchy.[28]

 

But for many pro-abortion supporters, because of the changing actions of pro-life advocates, expressly those of Operation Rescue, civil disobedience had crossed the line and they felt laws were necessary to maintain access to abortion.  Congress in 1994 passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, FACE.[29]  Done in response to demands from the pro-abortion lobby and as a way to respond to growing civil disobedience at abortion clinics, FACE prohibits injuring, intimidating, or interfering with any person who obtains or provides reproductive health services.  It also provides for civil and criminal penalties against violators.  

 

Congress adopted FACE in reaction to the increasing number of blockades of abortion clinics by pro-life organizations and by the perceived lack of protection provided to clinics and women seeking abortion by local law enforcement officials.  The law was introduced after the Supreme Court ruled in Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health[30] in which they held that federal court judges were not permitted to invoke a Reconstruction-era civil rights law, the Civil Rights Act of 1871,[31] against the harassment and protest activities that occurred outside abortion clinic entrances.

 

The FACE Act marked the opening salvo of an ongoing battle for the right of access to abortion and to the abortion clinic.  Although some see this as a means for women to secure abortions without fear of harassment, others view it as a violation the First Amendment right of freedom of speech.  A right held dear by Americans. 

 

Buffer Zones: Cases and Their Outcomes

States have essentially enacted two approaches in their attempt to limit demonstrations and ensure safety at abortion clinics.  These have been the enactment of laws like the federal FACE Act or by limiting pro-life advocates who attempt to speak with abortion minded women by either creating buffer zones around clinics, barring these advocates entirely, or by attempting to establish floating bubble zones around an individual who is within a specific distance of a clinic.  These laws prohibit pro-life advocates from crossing into the specified bubble zone without the person’s consent. 

 

The Supreme Court has since the late 1990s heard several cases involving buffer zones outside abortion clinics.  Most recently, in 2014, the justices unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law that created a 35-foot protest-free zone outside abortion clinics.  The court said the Massachusetts buffer zone law, which made it a crime to stand in the protest-free zone for most people not entering or exiting the clinic or passing by was an unconstitutional restraint on the free-speech rights of pro-life demonstrators.[32] 

 

The following are highlights from several of the cases that made it to the Supreme Court.  They note the outcomes in each state court as well as the response of the Supreme Court and the subsequent holdings.

 

Masden v. Women’s Health Center

The first buffer zone case to reach the United States Supreme Court was the 1994 case, Madsen v. Women’s Health Center, Inc.[33]  In this case, the Supreme Court considered whether an injunction restricting pro-life demonstrations outside a Florida abortion clinic unconstitutionally infringed upon demonstrators' First Amendment rights.[34]

 

The case arose out of demonstrations against the Aware Woman Center for Choice in Melbourne, Florida.  Protestors at this location blocked doors and marched on the street, conveying their message by using bullhorns.  They approached patients in an attempt to convince them to not get an abortion and followed clinic staff to their homes to demonstrate their opposition to abortion.[35]  In September 1992, in response to the Center’s suit against the protestors, a state court judge issued the following order, that protestors not trespass on Center property, block its entrances, or physically abuse anyone entering or leaving the clinic.  The judge noted specifically that the order was not intended to limit protestors from exercising their First Amendment rights.  Declaring that the protestors’ activities conflicted with the state’s concern for public safety and women’s right to abortion, the Florida State Supreme Court unanimously upheld the order.[36]

 

The United States Supreme Court upheld the restrictions against demonstrating within 36 feet of the clinic (to the extent that the 36-foot buffer did not include private property), making loud noises within earshot of the clinic, and making loud noises within 300 feet of an employee’s residence.[37] The Court rejected the prohibitions against displaying images, approaching patients within 300 feet of the clinic, and peacefully picketing within 300 feet of an employee’s residence.  

 

In reaching its decision, the Court announced a new test for cases in which speech is prohibited by an injunction.[38]  The Court introduced a heightened intermediate level scrutiny standard which provides greater protection to First Amendment rights by increasing the burden or threshold an injunction must overcome to be constitutional. Specifically, to be constitutional, an injunction can burden no more speech than is necessary, and the Court applied this standard in rejecting some portions of the injunction, while upholding other portions.  Thus, by restricting the ability of judges to regulate speech and expression, the Madsen opinion appears to be both facially fair and a positive step towards First Amendment protection.[39]

 

Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network

The issue of abortion clinic buffer zones was revisited by the Supreme Court in the 1997 decision, Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York.[40]  Three doctors and four medical clinics near Rochester and Buffalo, New York filed a federal lawsuit against 50 individuals and three organizations, Operation Rescue, Project Rescue Western New York, and Project Life of Rochester, organizations that often engaged in heated pro-life demonstrations. The lawsuit alleged that the pro-life advocates would block access to abortion clinics by kneeling or obstructing driveways and similar actions.[41]

 

As the case worked through the courts, a federal district court issued an injunction against the demonstrators, prohibiting them, except for two sidewalk counselors, from demonstrating within 15 feet of abortion-clinic entrances and driveways and within 15 feet of vehicles and patients entering or leaving a clinic.[42]  Within this zone, “a conversation of a nonthreatening nature” initiated by up to two people with someone entering or leaving the clinic was permitted if the conversation ended if those entering the clinic made known that they wanted it to stop; demonstrations and other types of obstruction were prohibited.[43] To address these issues, the district court prohibited protesters within 15 feet of fixed physical locations, in this case an abortion clinic, creating the fixed buffer zone.  The provision also prohibited pro-life advocates within 15 feet of moving objects, understood to be cars or people, which created the floating buffer zone.[44]

 

Although pro-life activists initially complied with the injunctions, over time the previous activities resumed requiring additional hearings and subsequent contempt citation, creating injunctions that present potentially difficult First Amendment problems.  On one hand, such injunctions are content neutral, meaning that they are laws that apply to all expression without regard to the substance or message of the expression.  However, they also deal with speech that is combined with action.  Such laws allow the state latitude for regulation that it would not have if dealing with pure speech.[45]  Such situations can also mean that these injunctions in practice tend to limit the speech of pro-life groups and can potentially encompass political speech as opposed to simple physical obstruction, which would suggest significant constitutional difficulties.[46]

 

In the Madsen decision the Supreme Court held that appellate courts should subject content-neutral injunctions to more “stringent” First Amendment scrutiny than comparable legislation, noting that the time, place, and manner restrictions are not sufficiently rigorous.[47] They also held that injunctions protecting access to abortion clinics were constitutional only if they “burden no more speech than necessary to serve a significant government interest.”[48]  The Court used the test developed in Madsen to determine the constitutionality of the fixed and floating buffer zones developed within Schenck.  It was the Court’s finding that the fixed buffer zone did not burden any more speech than necessary to serve the government interests of ensuring public safety and order, promoting the free flow of traffic on streets and sidewalks, and protecting women’s freedom to seek abortions or other health-related services.  However, the Court struck down the floating buffer zone because it found such a zone to be overly broad and difficult to enforce.[49]  The Court reasoned in part that forcing demonstrators to remain at least 15 feet away from the people they wished to communicate with would create an inordinate amount of dangerous confusion and congestion.[50]

 

Hill v. Colorado

This case started as a law enacted by the Colorado Legislature in 1993 requiring pro-life demonstrators to stay eight feet away from anyone entering or leaving an abortion clinic, as long as the clinic visitor is within 100 feet of the entrance.[51] In 1995, three pro-life activists challenged the law, claiming it violated their free-speech rights.  Both a trial court and the state appeals court upheld the statute.  When the Supreme Court of Colorado refused to hear their case, the petitioners appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and because of the ruling against floating buffer zones in Schenck, the Supreme Court ordered the Colorado Court of Appeals to re-examine the case.  The state appeals court upheld the law.  In February 1999, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s ruling, stating that the law places reasonable restrictions on the time, place, and manner of speech by pro-life demonstrators. 

 

The case was appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court and the issue before the Court was whether the law prohibiting demonstrators from approaching within eight feet of anyone coming to and from medical clinics violated the First Amendment.[52]  The Court upheld the law by a 6-3 vote in its 2000 decision Hill v. Colorado.[53]  The majority reasoned that the law was not a speech regulation, but simply a “regulation of the places where some speech may occur.”[54] The Court also emphasized that the law applied to all demonstrators regardless of viewpoint.  The justices went on to determine that the state’s interests in protecting access and privacy were unrelated to the suppression of certain types of speech. The court noted that states and municipalities have special government interests in certain areas, including schools, courthouses, polling places, private homes, and medical clinics.[55]

 

Although a case concerning First Amendment rights, the dissent accused the majority of manipulating constitutional doctrine in order to provide further protection for abortions: “What is before us, after all, is a speech regulation directed against the opponents of abortion, and it therefore enjoys the benefit of the ‘ad hoc nullification machine’ that the Court has set in motion to push aside whatever doctrines of constitutional law that stand in the way of that highly favored practice.”[56]

 

Scheidler v. National Organization of Women

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a setback to abortion advocates and the clinics providing abortions in its 8-0 decision in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women.[57]  For two decades, the National Organization for Women (NOW) had waged a legal battle to invoke the use of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) of 1970 against pro-life demonstrators and organizations who NOW accused of physically blocking access to clinics, assaulting clinic staff, patients, and employees, and destroying clinic equipment and records.[58]

 

NOW charged that antiabortion protesters were involved in a nationwide conspiracy to close abortion clinics by engaging in racketeering activities that included blocking clinic entrances, arson, destruction of property, bombings, harassment of clinic personnel and clients, threats, intimidation, physical injury, and extortion.  They alleged that the defendants in this specific case had violated the Hobbs Act of 1948[59] a federal anti-extortion law that forbids anyone from interfering with interstate commerce “by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose” to violate the act.  NOW wanted the courts to decide whether RICO was applicable against a defendant seeking to further ideological or political motives rather than economic gain.[60]

 

The Court held that threatening or committing acts of physical violence that were unrelated to extortion or robbery were not within the ambit of the Hobbs Act.  According to the Court, the “plan or purpose” specified in the statute must be interpreted as a plan or purpose that affects interstate commerce through robbery or extortion, not simply a plan or purpose related to commerce.[61] This decision ended NOW’s decades long attempt to use a civil RICO claim to halt the actions of the pro-life advocates against clinics seeking to provide abortions or women seeking them.

 

Conclusion

Abortion restrictions have occurred both before and after the 1973 Roe v. Wade[62] decision.  Even as the cultural and political landscape has changed, advocates for life continue to push back at the attempts to restrict their life saving work.  And as this article showed the types of restrictions faced by pro-life advocates, none is more critical to not only the efforts to save lives but that also has the potential to weaken the fabric that is important to each American, freedom of speech.

 

While abortion advocates feel that buffer zones are critical to the safety of abortion clinics and for the safety of women seeking their services, buffer zones pose serious issues for First Amendment rights.  The importance of the First Amendment remains undisputed, making its fundamental guarantees of free speech and assembly the cornerstone of our democratic society.  And equally serious are ongoing challenges posed by state and federal political leaders, as well as state and federal judges, attempting to secure a woman’s right to an abortion, while limiting the basic First Amendment rights of all individuals.  With each attempt to limit the efforts of pro-life advocates there has been a counterbalance of restrictions that limit the overreach of the pro-abortion lobby.  Just as recent changes in the state abortion politics have not been about states restricting abortion access but have also taken the form of states actively defending abortion access, we will continue to see efforts to restrict abortion as well as pro-life advocates.  Within each of the buffer zone cases presented and others in which the Supreme Court has decided, there are in place checks and balances which limit judicial overreach and provide a heightened form of intermediate scrutiny.  A scrutiny that is necessary to continue work that seeks to save lives.

 

____________________

[1] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

[2] Lewis, Jone Johnson. "The History of the Comstock Law." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-comstock-law-3529472 

[3]  Lewis, 1

[4] Leslie J. Reagan, When the Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine and Law in the United States, 1867-1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

[5] Baker, Carrie. “The History of Abortion Law in the United States.” Our Bodies Ourselves (blog). https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/u-s-abortion-history/.

[6] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

[7] Wilson, Joshua C, Striving to Rollback or Protect Roe: State Legislation and the Trump-Era Politics of Abortion, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Volume 50, Issue 3, Summer 2020, Pages 370–397, https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjaa015

[8] Wilson, 371

[9] Holland, Jennifer. “Abolishing Abortion: The History of the Pro-Life Movement in America.” The American Historian, 2022. https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2016/november/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america/

[10] Reagan, Leslie J. Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.

[11] Holland

[12] Frank, Gillian. “The Colour of the Unborn: Anti-Abortion and Anti-Bussing Politics in Michigan, United States, 1967-1973: Anti-Abortion and Anti-Bussing Politics in Michigan, 1967-1973.” Gender & History 26, no. 2 (August 2014): 351–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12073.

[13] Frank, 351-78

[14] Holland, Jennifer. “Abolishing Abortion: The History of the Pro-Life Movement in America.” The American Historian, 2022. https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2016/november/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america/

[15] Holland

[16] Whitehead, John W. "Civil Disobedience and Operation Rescue: A Historical and Theoretical Analysis." Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 48 (1991): 77.

[17] Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 109 S. Ct. 3040 (1989).

[18] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

[19] Connors, Operation Rescue: An Observation (pamphlet). See generally R. Terry, OPERATION RESCUE (1988).

[20] Holland, Jennifer. “Abolishing Abortion: The History of the Pro-Life Movement in America.” The American Historian, 2022. https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2016/november/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america/

[21] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

[22] McRae v. Mathews, 21 F.Supp. 533 (1976)

[23] American Civil Liberties Union. “Access Denied: Origins of the Hyde Amendment and Other Restrictions on Public Funding for Abortion,” 2022. https://www.aclu.org/other/access-denied-origins-hyde-amendment-and-other-restrictions-public-funding-abortion

[24] Gerais, Reem, "The Hyde Amendment of 1976". Embryo Project Encyclopedia (2017-06-28). ISSN: 1940-5030 http://embryo.asu.edu/handle/10776/11876

[25] Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980)

[26] American Civil Liberties Union. “Access Denied: Origins of the Hyde Amendment and Other Restrictions on Public Funding for Abortion,” 2022. https://www.aclu.org/other/access-denied-origins-hyde-amendment-and-other-restrictions-public-funding-abortion

[27] Williams v. Zbaraz, 448 U.S. 358 (1980)

[28] Whitehead, John W. Civil Disobedience and Operation Rescue: A Historical And Theoretical Analysis, 48 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 77 (1991). Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol48/iss1/5

[29] Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (18 U.S.C., Sect. 248).

[30] Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, 506 U.S. 263 (1993)

[31] Civil Rights Act of 1871. 42 U.S. Code § 1983

[32] Gresko, Jessica. “High Court Won’t Hear Abortion Clinic ‘Buffer Zone’ Cases.” AP NEWS, 2021. https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-courts-supreme-courts-pennsylvania-politics-31d02c9336e9f3c2a5d9dea4a883e72c.

[33] Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753 (1994)

[34] Wohlstadter, Jennifer, Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc.: The Constitutionality of Abortion Clinic Buffer Zones, 25 Golden Gate U. L. Rev. (1995). http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/ggulrev/vol25/iss3/4

[35] Gluck Mezey, Susan. “Madsen v. Women’s Health Center, Inc.” The First Amendment Encyclopedia, 2009. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/10/madsen-v-women-s-health-center-inc.

[36] Gluck Mezey

[37] Hudson, David. “Abortion Protests and Buffer Zones.” Freedom Forum Institute, 2011. https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/topics/freedom-of-assembly/abortion-protests-buffer-zones/.

[38] Wohlstadter, Jennifer . “Madsen v. Women ’s Health Center, Inc.: The Constitutionality of Abortion Clinic Buffer Zones.” Golden Gate University Law Review 25, no. 3 (1995): 543–77.

[39] Bencivenga, John W. Constitutional Law—When Rights Collide: Buffer Zones and Abortion Clinics—Madsen v. Women's Health Center, 114 S. Ct. 2516 (1994), 22 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 695 (1995).

https://ir.law.fsu.edu/lr/vol22/iss3/2

[40] Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, 519 U.S. 357 (1997)

[41] Hudson.

[42] Hudson.

[43] Vile, John R. “Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York,” 2009. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1462/schenck-v-pro-choice-network-of-western-new-york.

[44] Vile, John R. “Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York.” First Amendment Encyclopedia, 2009. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1462/schenck-v-pro-choice-network-of-western-new-york.

[45] Vile, John R.

[46] Vile, John R.

[47] O’Neill, Kevin Francis. “Time, Place and Manner Restrictions.” First Amendment Encyclopedia, 2009. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1023/time-place-and-manner-restrictions.

[48]  Vile, John R.

[49] Vile, John R. “Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York.” First Amendment Encyclopedia, 2009. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1462/schenck-v-pro-choice-network-of-western-new-york.

[50] "Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York." Oyez. 2022. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1996/95-1065.

[51] Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18. Criminal Code § 18-9-122. Preventing passage to and from a health care facility--engaging in prohibited activities near facility - Updated January 01, 2019 | https://codes.findlaw.com/co/title-18-criminal-code/co-rev-st-sect-18-9-122.html

[52] Hudson.

[53] Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000)

[54] Hudson

[55] Hudson

[56] Hudson

[57] Scheidler v. National Organization for Women. 547 US 9 (2006)

[58] Gluck Mezey, Jennifer.” Scheidler v. National Organization for Women.” The First Amendment Encyclopedia, 2009. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/11/scheidler-v-national-organization-for-women.

[59] Hobbs Act.18 U.S.C. § 1951

[60] Gluck Mezey.

[61] Gluck Mezey.

[62] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)