The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear an argument to the legality of buffer zones used to protect access to abortion clinics and limit harassment of patients in a challenge brought by anti-abortion activists who have argued that their free speech rights were being violated. The justices turned away appeals by self-described "sidewalk counselors" in New Jersey and Illinois of lower court decisions to throw out their lawsuits that had claimed the buffer zones violate free speech protections under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. The activists were asking...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a pair of cases from abortion opponents who say laws limiting anti-abortion demonstrations near clinics violate their First Amendment rights. The majority did not explain their reasoning for turning down the appeals, as is typical, but two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, disagreed. The cities said the laws were passed to address disturbing behavior from protesters outside of health care clinics.

WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court on Monday passed on the chance to get rid of protest-free zones at abortion clinics. The court declined to hear challenges to a law in southern Illinois and to a 2014 ordinance in Englewood, New Jersey, that created a protest-free buffer zone around certain health care facilities. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have taken the cases. Anti-abortion groups, as well as a number of Republican attorneys general, wanted the justices to use the challenges to overturn a 2000 decision − Hill...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider overturning a 25-year-old precedent that upheld "buffer zone" laws limiting how close protesters can get to abortion clinic entrances. In a setback for abortion opponents, the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority hostile to abortion rights, opted against weighing whether such laws violate the free speech rights of protesters under the Constitution's First Amendment. At issue in the two related cases were buffer zone laws in Carbondale, Illinois, and Englewood, New Jersey. In the 2000 ruling in a case...

The US Supreme Court dealt a setback to abortion opponents, refusing to reconsider a 2000 decision that lets states and cities create protective zones to shield patients from being approached near clinic entrances.

Sidestepping what would likely have been a polarizing fight, the justices turned away two appeals that said the restrictions outside clinics violate the free-speech rights of abortion opponents who want to talk to women as they enter facilities. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have heard both cases.