Originally published at National Catholic Register
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether or not it will take up the case on Nov. 22.
A St. Louis pro-life group has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional a rural Illinois town’s now-defunct “buffer zone” law, which previously impeded the group’s peaceful protests and counseling outside the town’s abortion clinics.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether or not it will take up the case on Nov. 22.
The case, Coalition Life v. City of Carbondale, Illinois, concerns a law restricting protests outside three abortion clinics in Carbondale, a small college town about two hours southeast of St. Louis and three hours north of Memphis, Tennessee, both major cities in states that currently have strong pro-life protections in place.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Illinois leaders have leaned in to the state’s status as a destination for women seeking abortions throughout the Midwest. Democratic leaders in the state had been expanding protections for abortion in the state for years before the fall of Roe, removing all criminal penalties for performing abortions and lifting regulations on clinics.
Notably, in 2019, Planned Parenthood opened an 18,000-square-foot, $7 million “mega”
