MINNEAPOLIS (AP) 鈥� Minneapolis has softened an ordinance that prohibited the obstruction of entrances and driveways to abortion clinics after anti-abortion activists on free-speech grounds.
The City Council this month quietly to exclude constitutionally protected activities and agreed to pay the plaintiffs' legal fees. Brian Gibson, chief executive officer of Pro-Life Action Ministries, said in an interview Friday that it amounted to an admission by the city that the law violated the freedom of speech.
鈥淭hey were accepting fault for having violated our constitutional rights,鈥� Gibson said.
Pro-Life Action Ministries sends 鈥渟idewalk counselors鈥� to Planned Parenthood clinics in Minneapolis, St. Paul and elsewhere to try to dissuade people from having abortions. The ordinance, which the city was designed to protect patients of the Planned Parenthood clinic in the Uptown neighborhood from group members who would approach patients as they drove into the parking lot there. Gibson said they never blocked any entrances, but would try to get people to roll down their windows to take literature or talk.
Minneapolis was the only city the state with such a rule. Gibson said their most immediate concern when they filed the lawsuit in 2023 was to overturn the Minneapolis ordinance, but he acknowledged that they also wanted to prevent St. Paul, where there's a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, from adopting something similar, which it never did.
The final judgement in favor of Pro-Life Action Ministries and three of its sidewalk counselors was filed in federal court Thursday.
Nationwide, several people have been convicted in the last year alone under the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, known as the or similar laws for physically blockading abortion clinic entrances. That includes activists in , , , and , with some getting prison sentences as high as three to five years.
Toward the end of that dealt mostly with other topics on Dec. 5, the Minneapolis City Council to approve the agreement on legal fees, then returned in a very brief open session to unanimously exempt 鈥渁ny person or group engaging in conduct protected by the United States Constitution, the Minnesota Constitution or federal or Minnesota law.鈥�
The law still prohibits physically blocking clinic entrances, and the city council's vice president, Aisha Chughtai, said it's consistent with the FACE Act.
She said the council wants to make sure people have access to heath care, including abortions, and voiced support for Planned Parenthood.
鈥淲e also want to be sure to provide very specific carveouts to ensure First Amendment rights are protected and ensure our local authority remains intact,鈥� she told her colleagues at the meeting.
Chughtai did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday. In response to a request for comment from the city attorney's office, a city spokesperson supplied a statement that was nearly identical to what Chughtai said at the council meeting.
鈥淭hey amended their ordinance and repaired the damage that was done there. It was total victory for the free-speech folks,鈥� said Peter Breen, head of litigation for the conservative Thomas More Society, which represented the plaintiffs.
Planned Parenthood North Central States, which was not a party to the lawsuit, said in a statement that under the revision, 鈥淧atients continue to be protected from people blocking or obstructing the driveway or sidewalk.鈥�
Breen said they鈥檒l file a bill for the attorney鈥檚 fees soon, but that their last estimate was in the $600,000 range.
The Thomas More Society and allied groups are litigating similar restrictions nationwide, Breen said. They鈥檝e asked a federal appeals court to block a similar ordinance in Clearwater, Florida. They鈥檙e also fighting similar measures in Westchester County of New York, San Diego, and Detroit.
And they鈥檝e asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a challenge to an ordinance in Carbondale, Illinois. While the Supreme Court in 2000 affirmed a Colorado buffer zone requirement in a case called Hill v. Colorado, Breen noted that the high court more recently in its , which struck down the constitutional right to abortion, criticized the Hill decision, saying its previous abortion rulings 鈥渉ave distorted First Amendment doctrines.鈥�
Gibson said his members sometimes succeed in persuading people who come to the Minnesota clinics to cancel their abortions. He said they gather outside the St. Paul clinic nearly every day, and even go there Sundays when it's closed just to pray. And he said they had a victory on their first day back outside the Minneapolis clinic when they approached a woman who had parked on the street.
鈥淲e had a baby saved,鈥� he said. 鈥淎 woman decided not to go through with her abortion appointment.鈥�
Steve Karnowski, The Associated Press
