Coalition Life v. City of Carbondale, Illinois

On February 24, 2025, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, which challenged the constitutionality of “bubble zone” ordinances and asked the Court to revisit its precedent in Hill v. Colorado (2000). Justices Alito and Thomas would have granted certiorari in Coalition Life v. Carbondale, with Justice Thomas writing in dissent from the denial. Justice Thomas wrote: 

“Hill has been seriously undermined, if not completely eroded, and our refusal to provide clarity is an abdication of our judicial duty... I would have taken this opportunity to explicitly overrule Hill.”

“On the eve of our petition deadline, Carbondale quietly repealed its bubble zone ordinance in a shadowy, four-minute, weekend meeting, knowing full well their bubble zone would fail constitutional scrutiny if it came before the Supreme Court,” said Peter Breen, Thomas More Society Vice President & Head of Litigation. “While our clients are now able to sidewalk counsel freely in Carbondale, the city flagrantly violated their Free Speech rights for eighteen months, without penalty. And pro-abortion government bodies in many other cities across the country continue to unconstitutionally restrict the speech of pro-life sidewalk counselors. This game of legal Whac-A-Mole is an unsustainable dynamic, and the only solution is for the Court to overrule Hill once and for all.”

On behalf of Coalition Life, Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit in May 2023 against the City of Carbondale, Illinois—challenging the city’s restrictive 100-foot bubble zone ordinance. Coalition Life volunteers regularly gather outside of Carbondale’s abortion businesses to pray, sidewalk counsel, and share their life-affirming message. Carbondale, a southern Illinois college town, has become a major abortion battleground since the overturn of Roe—as the abortion industry seeks to turn southern Illinois into an abortion hub for a third of the country.

Despite only targeting pro-life activity at the city’s abortion businesses, the Carbondale ordinance extended to all healthcare facilities in the city. Carbondale boasts some 153 “hospitals, medical clinics, or healthcare facilities,” all of which then had an 100-foot radius no-speech zones around them, because of the bubble zone ordinance. In July 2024, Carbondale called an extraordinary, weekend meeting in the City Hall basement, during which the city council repealed the ordinance. Coalition Life sidewalk counselors in Carbondale no longer face burdensome restrictions on their free speech rights when advocating for life and sharing their compassionate, life-affirming message outside of Carbondale's abortion facilities.