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The U.S. Supreme Court declined an opportunity to hear a challenge from a Catholic sidewalk counselor in New York on Monday and refused to consider overturning its precedent allowing protective “bubble” zones around abortion clinics and their clients.
The nation’s highest court refused to consider abortion rights activist Debra Vitagliano’s appeal of a lower court’s dismissal of her case challenging a Westchester County ordinance that restricted demonstrations outside of abortion facilities.
Vitagliano claimed that the law, which was approved in June 2022 and then revoked two months later, infringed upon the freedom of speech guaranteed by the United States Constitution, the Washington Examiner reported.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which was representing Vitagliano, received support from several anti-abortion and religious organizations as well as fourteen Republican state attorneys general.
“There is no abortion exception to the First Amendment,” wrote the attorneys general in support of Vitagliano. “Sidewalk counseling is not second-class speech, and government restrictions on it must meet the same standards as every other content-based restriction.”
On Monday, though, the justices announced briefly that they would not be hearing the case, and no dissenting opinions were included.
On Monday, the Supreme Court affirmed in Hill v. Colorado, a case going on for 23 years, that states have the right to impose location-based speech restrictions.
Anyone residing within a hundred feet of an abortion facility must adhere to an 8-foot “bubble zone” under a law that Westchester County passed in response to the Hill case’s precedent. It would have been illegal to “knowingly” approach a potential clinic patient without their consent to demonstrate, hold a placard, give advice, or educate them.
Clinic violence has escalated since Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to Beth Sousa, a senior policy adviser for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Sousa argues that these zones shield abortion providers and prospective patients from harassment “while still allowing protesters to convey their messages.”
“If the First Amendment protects anything, it protects the right to engage in peaceful, face-to-face conversations about important matters on a public sidewalk,” Vitagliano’s attorneys wrote to the justices.
In another recent case, the Supreme Court unanimously decided in favor of a postal worker from Pennsylvania in a significant religious liberty case involving the appropriateness of employers’ accommodation of religious preferences in the workplace.
Christian mailman Gerald Groff of Pennsylvania requested the court rule on whether the U.S. Postal Service may make him deliver parcels from Amazon on Sundays, which he observes as the Sabbath. His lawyer, Aaron Streett, argued in April that the court needed to review a decision from 50 years ago that set a standard for figuring out when companies have to make allowances for their workers’ religious practices.
In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court rejected a ruling from 1977 that mandated that businesses must “reasonably accommodate” an employee’s religious practices as long as doing so does not put an “undue hardship” on the company.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires employers to accommodate employees’ religious practices unless doing so would be an “undue hardship” for the business. A 1977 Supreme Court case, Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, said employers could deny religious accommodations to employees when they impose “more than a de minimis cost” on the business.
Streett said the court should get rid of the “de minimus” test because lower courts have used it wrongly to deny religious accommodations. Instead, he said, the court should use the plain language of Title VII, which would define “undue burden” the same way it is in other federal laws, like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
For the Postal Service, the Biden administration told the Supreme Court that Hardison does not need to be overturned because the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which enforces Title VII, and many lower courts have already seen the decision as protecting religious employees in a big way.
“The government believes undue hardship arises whenever there is lost efficiency, weekly payment of premium wages, or denial of a coworker’s shift preference,” Streett told the justices during oral arguments. “Thus, under the government’s test, a diabetic employee could receive snack breaks under the ADA but not prayer breaks under Title VII, for that might cause lost efficiency.”
