At issue was a 25-year precedent that allows local governments to create protest-free buffer zones around all health-care facilities, not just abortion clinics.

In the years since the Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion and since Texas instituted one of the country’s strictest abortion bans, the state has seen an increased rate of sepsis among women who lost their pregnancies in the second trimester.

The election, scheduled for April 1, will determine the ideological balance of the court, with implications for issues such as abortion and workers' rights.

On June 22, 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion established a half-century before in Roe v. Wade, opening the door to state abortion bans across the country.

Justices Thomas and Alito dissented from the court’s refusal to reconsider a 25-year-old precedent upholding “buffer zones” around abortion clinics.

The cities argued that the restrictions were enacted to curb disturbing behavior from protesters outside health care facilities.

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,

Abortion opponents wanted the Supreme Court to scrap protest restrictions around clinics. Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have taken the case.

Justice Clarence Thomas issued a scathing dissent Monday after the Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging free speech rights around abortion clinics, suggesting he wants to revisit the matter after the court ended the federal constitutional right to abortion in 2022.

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 Supreme Court turned down an opportunity to overturn its precedent permitting buffer zones around abortion clinics over the objections of two of the court’s leading conservatives. In two orders issued Monday,

The Supreme Court opted against hearing arguments in a pair of appeals Monday seeking to wipe out protest buffer zones around abortion clinics – a move that, for now, will leave those restrictions in place.