A Catholic woman from Westchester County, New York, won’t get her day before the nation’s highest court.
The Supreme Court passed up an opportunity on Dec. 11 to lay the groundwork for overturning its precedent permitting protective zones called “bubbles” around abortion clinics to keep protesters and pro-life sidewalk counselors away.
The nation’s highest court declined a petition filed by Debra Vitagliano that sought to appeal a lower court ruling dismissing her lawsuit that claimed Westchester County, New York, violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The petition also specifically invited the court to overrule its existing precedent upholding laws about the bubbles. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled against her in June.
The Supreme Court dismissed the petition for certiorari, or review, in Vitagliano v. County of Westchester, in an unsigned order (pdf). No justices dissented. At least four of the nine justices must vote for a petition for the case to advance to the oral argument stage.
Ms. Vitagliano expressed disappointment that the court turned down her petition.
“A pregnant woman in need deserves to know that she and her child will be loved, defended, and supported,” she said in a statement provided by her attorneys after the Supreme Court ruled.
“Westchester County threatened to put me in jail for over a year, just for speaking a message of hope to women outside abortion clinics. When I asked the Supreme Court to take my case, Westchester County repealed the law, admitting it had not been necessary to threaten women with jail time for peaceful conversations. No government official should try to outlaw compassionate conversations on a public sidewalk.”
Ms. Vitagliano is a devout Catholic and an occupational therapist, according to her attorneys at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a public interest law firm focused on protecting religious freedoms.
For more than 40 years, she has worked with children diagnosed with various physical and neurological disabilities, including severe disabilities that some seek to address by abortion. Consistent with her Catholic faith, she opposes abortion and sees it as the deliberate termination of an innocent human life.
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