{"id":33567,"date":"2023-06-06T18:34:21","date_gmt":"2023-06-06T18:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/federal-lawsuit-challenges-colorados-bubble-law\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:11:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:11:04","slug":"federal-lawsuit-challenges-colorados-bubble-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/federal-lawsuit-challenges-colorados-bubble-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal lawsuit challenges Colorado\u2019s \u2018bubble\u2019 law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Planned Parenthood building in Bodo Park in Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

An anti-abortion activist is challenging Colorado\u2019s 30-year-old prohibition on approaching people within 100 feet of the entrance of a health care facility to pass them a leaflet, display a sign or engage in \u201coral protest, education or counseling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1993 ban, sometimes called the \u201cbubble law,\u201d was enacted by the Legislature as a way to shield women getting an abortion from harassment, though it doesn\u2019t apply just to abortion clinics.<\/p>\n

The law has faced legal challenges before, including one that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and was rejected by a 6-3 vote.<\/p>\n

The new lawsuit was filed June 1 in federal court by Wendy Faustin, who \u201cbelieves that abortion is a horrific moral wrong\u201d and \u201cwishes to personally and compassionately talk to women seeking abortions and give them further information related to the procedure and other available options.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defendants include Gov. Jared Polis, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann and Denver police Chief Ron Thomas. The attorney general\u2019s office doesn\u2019t comment on active litigation.<\/p>\n

Faustin is also challenging a similar, municipal-level bubble law enacted by Denver\u2019s City Council. She argues the laws violate her First Amendment free speech rights, as well as her 14th Amendment rights to equal protection under the nation\u2019s laws.<\/p>\n

Faustin appears to be hoping to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s 2000 ruling on Colorado\u2019s bubble law now that there\u2019s a conservative majority on the court.<\/p>\n

Last year, the court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 precedent guaranteeing a minimum level of abortion access across the country. That decision called the court\u2019s 2000 ruling on Colorado\u2019s bubble law a distortion of First Amendment doctrines.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaintiff acknowledges that the result she seeks is contrary to currently governing precedent as set forth by the majority opinion in Hill,\u201d the lawsuit says. \u201cBut for the reasons explained by the dissents in that case and in later Supreme Court precedent, that case was wrongly decided, is irreconcilable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faustin is represented by lawyers for the First Liberty Institute, a Christian nonprofit based in Texas.<\/p>\n

More broadly, Colorado is becoming a legal battleground when it comes to abortion. There\u2019s already a pending federal lawsuit challenging the state\u2019s new, first-in-the-nation ban on the so-called abortion pill reversal treatment. A failed effort to block an abortion clinic from opening up in Pueblo was set to test Colorado\u2019s 2022 law enshrining abortion access in statute.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s bubble law specifically creates an 8-foot buffer zone for people within 100 feet of a health care facility\u2019s entrance. The state law carries a penalty of jail time and\/or a fine for violators.<\/p>\n

Other states and cities have bubble laws, too. The outcome of the case in Colorado could affect policies in those places.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado\u2019s \u2018bubble law\u2019 has survived not one but two Supreme Court challenges,\u201d Dani Newsum, director of strategic partnerships at Cobalt, a Colorado abortion rights nonprofit, said in a written statement. \u201cPatients should have a right to access health care, including abortion care, without being harassed. At a time when violence, threats and harassment against abortion clinics, patients and providers is escalating, patients should be left alone to get the health care they need and deserve in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case is in its early stages in U.S. District Court. There\u2019s no timeline for when it will be resolved.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

becoming a legal battleground over abortion rights<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2612,233,28,107,1373,1374],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-abortion","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-laws","tag-litigation","tag-litigation-and-regulation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82262,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33567\/revisions\/82262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33567"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}