From WWW.FOXNEWS.COM
A pro-life activist in Denver is challenging state and local laws that prohibit counseling women within 100 feet of an abortion clinic, which she argues violates her constitutional rights.
Wendy Faustin filed a lawsuit in the U. S. District Court of Colorado on June 1 aga inst Democrat Gov. Jared Polis as well as other state and local officials with regard to a 1993 “bubble law” that she alleges violates the First Amendment and her 14th Amendment right to equal protection.
“The basic idea is that free speech means the government can’t squash or silence messages it doesn’t like; it can’t punish people who voice those messages,” Roger Byron, lead counsel in Faustin’s case, told Fox News Digital.
“That kind of government action is blatantly unconstitutional. The whole point of the First Amendment is to prevent stuff like that. And yet, what we have here in Colorado and Denver is a law and an ordinance that does just that,” said Byron, who is representing Faustin on behalf of the Plano-based nonprofit First Liberty Institute.
Faustin, who believes “abortion is a horrific moral wrong,” has protested outside abortion clinics for decades, but she says Colorado’s 8-foot buffer law impinges upon her constitutional rights and forces her to shout at women entering abortion clinics instead of having a conversation with them, according to the suit.
Byron said the laws have rendered free speech outside abortion clinics “essentially impossible.”
“Under these laws, it’s a crime to be within 100 feet of the door of an abortion center or to get within eight feet of another person to hand her a pamphlet that tells her how to get some help,” Byron said…. (Read more)
