Top Court Won’t Revisit Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone Limits (1)

The US Supreme Court won’t review a lower court decision upholding a Carbondale, Ill., ordinance that created an eight-foot buffer zone around an abortion clinic, the justices said Monday.

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit’s decision presents the top court with an opportunity to overrule its controversial 2000 opinion in Hill v. Colorado, where it affirmed the dismissal of a First Amendment challenge to a substantially similar ordinance. Hill was wrongly decided and has been “all but interred” by subsequent First Amendment decisions, anti-abortion group Coalition Life said in its petition for review.

Illinois became a ...