Colorado Sidewalk Counselor Challenges 'Bubble Law' as First Amendment Violation

A Colorado woman who provides information about abortion alternatives outside clinics is challenging a state law she contends violates her First Amendment rights by prohibiting her from approaching individuals too closely.

Wendy Faustin, a pro-life sidewalk counselor, argues that Colorado's "bubble law" prevents her from offering women information about pregnancy resource centers and adoption agencies within a designated buffer zone around abortion facilities. Under the law, she cannot approach someone within eight feet to offer information if she is within 100 feet of a health care facility entrance.

Faustin's challenge to the law was rejected by a federal judge last July, and the case is now on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. The U.S. Supreme Court previously upheld Colorado's 1993 law in a 2000 decision, ruling that the restrictions did not violate the First Amendment.

Colorado state law and a Denver municipal ordinance make it a petty offense, punishable by a fine or short jail sentence, for individuals to knowingly approach within eight feet of another person without consent to distribute literature or engage in protest, education, or counseling within 100 feet of a health care facility entrance. Faustin stated that the law forces her to offer information from a distance, potentially compromising the privacy of conversations about sensitive subjects.

"I believe that every woman who is facing this decision deserves to have all the possible information that she might need," Faustin told Fox News Digital. "Sometimes she's feeling kind of backed into a corner by circumstances or maybe by other people, and she may not be aware that there can be help somewhere for her through a crisis pregnancy center, an adoption agency, and so that's all the information that I give is offering her information where she can get help and also information about the development of her baby."

Her attorney, Roger Byron, senior counsel for First Liberty Institute, asserts that the law unjustly restricts pro-life counselors while similar restrictions might not withstand legal scrutiny if applied to other forms of protest. Byron argued that the law creates a scenario where the message dictates the extent of protected speech, effectively making sidewalk counselors "second-class citizens" regarding their First Amendment rights.

"These laws would be struck down immediately if they restricted anti-war protesters or union workers on strike outside of their employer's facility," Byron said. "However, because they restrict pro-life sidewalk counselors, they do not. This decision, Hill versus Colorado from the Supreme Court and the statutes that it protects, make sidewalk counselors, because of their pro-life message, second-class citizens. It literally creates two First Amendments. An oppressive one for pro-life sidewalk counselors, and the real one, the good one for everybody else."

Byron indicated that the ruling from the Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit will shape the next steps, suggesting the case could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court regardless of the outcome.

The office of the Colorado attorney general declined to comment on the case beyond its legal filings.