Wuchner said she is optimistic about ending the buffer zone, arguing that sidewalk counselors have a First Amendment right to their ministry, and that the Supreme Court found a comparable law in violation of the First Amendment. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled against a 35-foot buffer zone ordinance in Massachusetts, which restricted access to sidewalks and other public spaces.
However, in 2020, the high court turned away challenges to eight-foot and 20-foot buffer zones in Chicago and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
“I feel it’s unconstitutional,” Wuchner said of the Louisville ordinance. “You’re in effect giving a private business the right to that sidewalk, which is a public entity paid for by taxpayers.”
Kentucky Today reported that Jefferson County Attorney Michael O’Connell, who represents the city’s Metro Council, argued the buffer zone is needed because protesters “harass, stalk, intimidate and assault patients entering and exiting the clinic.”
Wuchner said the buffer zone prevents those in pro-life ministries from genuine efforts to provide women with information about alternatives to abortion.
“There have been children saved because of that intimate conversation with a sidewalk counselor as women were walking in to have an abortion,” Wuchner said.
Credit: Source link
