Wendy Faustin is appealing a federal ruling that upheld Colorado’s clinic buffer zone restrictions.
Faustin, a pro-life sidewalk counselor, said that the state’s so-called “bubble law” criminalizes the quiet, compassionate conversations she tries to have with women entering abortion clinics. The Colorado statute and a Denver municipal ordinance bar individuals from knowingly approaching 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. Violations carry fines or possible short jail sentences.
“If you’re within 100 feet of the entrance to an abortion clinic, I can’t approach someone within 8 feet to give them any alternative information,” Faustin said.
The U.S. Supreme Court previously upheld Colorado’s 1993 law in its 2000 decision in Hill v. Colorado, ruling that the restrictions did not violate the First Amendment. Last July, a federal judge rejected Faustin’s challenge to the law. Her case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
The restriction forces her to speak from a distance about intensely personal subjects, potentially allowing others to overhear conversations she would prefer to keep private, Faustin explained. She described her work as simply offering women information about pregnancy resource centers, adoption agencies and other alternatives to abortion.
“I would rather be able to just walk up to somebody, offer them alternative information, places where they can get help,” she said.
“I believe that every woman who is facing this decision deserves to have all the possible information that she might need,” Faustin said. “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, framed the dispute as extending far beyond abortion to fundamental First Amendment questions.
“These laws literally make it a crime for Wendy to approach within 8 feet of a woman,” Byron said. He argued that such restrictions would not survive constitutional scrutiny if applied to other forms of protest.
“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.”
“What’s at stake is the free speech rights of anyone whose message is something other than what the government wants it to be,” he added.
Byron predicted the case will reach the Supreme Court regardless of the 10th Circuit’s ruling. “I suspect either way, this case is going to end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court,” he said.
The Colorado attorney general’s office declined to comment beyond its court filings when reached by Fox News Digital.
The Hill v. Colorado precedent has governed clinic buffer zone disputes for nearly twenty-five years, establishing that states may impose proximity limits without running afoul of constitutional speech protections. Faustin’s challenge represents the latest effort to overturn or narrow that standard through fresh litigation.
A ruling from the 10th Circuit is expected to shape whether similar buffer zone laws nationwide face renewed constitutional scrutiny.