By Daniel Payne
CNA Staff, Aug 20, 2025 /
13:26 pm
Pro-life activists in New York state were awarded $1 this month after a court found that a county abortion clinic rule violated their constitutional free speech rights.
The Thomas More Society brought suit in federal district court in 2022 against New York’s Westchester County over its rule forbidding “interference” with abortion access there.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found in favor of pro-life sidewalk counselors Oksana Hulinsky and Regina Molinelli, with District Judge Philip Halpern ruling on Aug. 12 that the county ordinance violated the activists’ free speech and due process rights.
The plaintiffs were only seeking “nominal damages” in the suit, the court noted, leading Halpern to order the $1 award. The county had already repealed the ordinance in question prior to the ruling.
Thomas More Society attorney Christopher Ferrara said in a press release that the ruling sends a “powerful message to municipalities nationwide” that “vague laws targeting pro-life speech will not stand.”
“Westchester County’s pro-life sidewalk counselors seek only to offer compassionate, life-affirming alternatives on public sidewalks — as is their First Amendment right,” he said.
“Westchester’s arrogant overreach tried to silence their voices, but this decision helps reaffirm their constitutional freedom to share the pro-life message.”
The law firm, however, noted that it would appeal an earlier court ruling that upheld parts of the law that forbid so-called “following-and-harassing” behavior.
Rules regarding conduct outside of abortion clinics have become legal flashpoints in the abortion debate around the U.S. and internationally in recent years.
The Supreme Court earlier this year refused to hear a case involving a “buffer zone” around abortion clinics in Carbondale, Illinois. That rule criminalizes approaching within eight feet of another person without his or her consent for purposes of protest, education, or counseling within 100 feet of a health care facility.
In 2023 a Washington state county judge ordered a pro-life group to pay nearly $1 million to Planned Parenthood for gathering and praying outside of one of its abortion clinics.
Earlier this month, a 28-year-old man was found guilty of assaulting two elderly pro-life activists in front of a Planned Parenthood facility in Baltimore, though the perpetrator was sentenced to just one year of home detention.
Last year, meanwhile, a national “buffer zone” law went into effect across England and Wales barring protests outside abortion facilities. Officials stipulated that silently praying outside of abortion clinics is “not necessarily” a crime under the new rules.
Daniel Payne is a senior editor at Catholic News Agency. He previously worked at the College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.
