Florida City’s Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone Law Paused on Appeal

Clearwater, Fla., has to pause enforcement of an ordinance that established a physical buffer zone around its sole abortion clinic,while an anti-abortion group’s constitutional challenge makes its way through the courts, a split federal appeals panel ruled.

Florida Preborn Rescue Inc. was wrongly denied its request to block the city from enforcing the ordinance until after a federal court rules on the nonprofit’s First Amendment challenge to the restriction, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said Thursday in an order reversing the district court’s ruling.

The plaintiffs “are likely to succeed on the merits of their First ...