PITTSBURGH – A federal appeals court has struck down an ordinance that created two types of buffer zones around medical facilities after a Christian legal group challenged the law on behalf of a nurse who protests abortions.
In a ruling issued Friday, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the 2005 Pittsburgh ordinance unduly restricted protesters from passing out leaflets and participating in other forms of free speech. The Pittsburgh law bans protesters from standing within 15 feet of entrances but also makes them stand 8 feet from clients in a 100-foot buffer around entrances.
The court found that either zone by itself could be legal. The U.S. Supreme Court has already upheld a Colorado state law establishing a similar 100-foot zone and decisions by courts in Florida and New York to ban protesters from within several feet of medical facility entrances.
But, combined, the appeals court found the zones violate the free speech rights of the protesters who find it difficult to hand leaflets to clinic clients.
"Pro-life advocates shouldn't be prohibited from expressing their beliefs," David Cortman, the Alliance Defense Fund attorney who challenged the ordinance, said in a statement Monday.
George Specter, who heads the city's law department, said Monday that he would not comment until he has a chance to review it.
Previously, city attorneys have argued the two zones were necessary to accomplish complementary functions. The 15-foot buffer zone keeps protesters from blocking entrances, while the 100-foot zone keeps protesters from following or harassing clients as they approach the clinics.
Cortman's group, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., sued to challenge the ordinance in 2006 on behalf of Mary Kathryn Brown, a nurse from Indiana Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Brown has spent more than 15 years attempting to persuade women not to have abortions by speaking to them and handing out literature about the procedure's physical dangers.
The appeals court rejected Brown's claims that police unfairly enforced the ordinance against her.
But it agreed with Brown's argument that the two buffer zones combined with traffic noise sometimes prevent her from talking to women using the normal, conversational tone she believes is most effective. The 100-foot zones also keeps her from handing leaflets to women before they enter the 15-foot buffer around clinic entrances, she claimed.
Besides striking down the ordinance, the opinion let stand some issues unresolved by a federal district court judge in Pittsburgh, including whether her rights were violated under the Pennsylvania Religious Freedom Protection Act. Those claims must still be heard by the district court.
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