Pro-life advocate Wendy Faustin recently filed a complaint against Colorado state and local officials for enforcing a law that violates her First Amendment rights.

The law restricts the ability of Faustin and others to enage in any life-affirming messages to women considering abortion within a specified buffer zone around abortion clinics.

The First Liberty Institute and law firm Cooker & Kirk, PLLC, are representing Faustin, who believes abortion is morally wrong and values the unborn as a human person. Since 1981, Faustin has been involved in the pro-life effort in numerous ways, including supporting crisis pregnancy centers.

According to the 26-page complaint, the Denver resident “feels she is called by God to defend the unborn in any way that she can.” Faustin believes one of the most effective ways to help pregnant mothers make a decision for life—and prevent them from causing lasting damage—is through sidewalk counseling. By approaching women at abortion clinics, her lawyers argue that she seeks, out of compassion, to educate them about their unborn child and tell them alternative available options. Those actions can now result in a misdemeanor.

The Colorado law, which took effect in March 2022, and Denver ordinances prohibit anyone from approaching someone within eight feet outside the entrance to abortion clinics “for the purpose of passing a leaflet or handbill to, to displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling with such other person in the public way or sidewalk area within a radius of 100 feet from any entrance to a health-care facility.”

However, any person is permitted to talk to the women in the same 100-foot radius for any other reason. This means the law largely punishes the speech of pro-life advocates, like Faustin.

“The First Amendment presumes it is unconstitutional for the government to restrict a private citizen’s expression because of ‘its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content,’” said Charles Cooper, chairman and founding partner at Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. “The laws imposed by Colorado and Denver favor one message over another. That’s unconstitutional.”

To comply with the law and still engage in sidewalk counseling, Faustin now holds up a sign with a pro-life message outside abortion clinics while standing just close enough to the clinic’s door to see when a woman is going inside. Her lawyers say she gently calls out to the woman, kindly asking if she can talk to them about or give them information on their unborn children, the procedure, or provide other resources. She is not harsh or confrontational toward these women, believing such actions hinder the effectiveness of her message, her complaint states.

“The government may not target life-affirming speech simply because it disagrees with the message,” said First Liberty Senior Counsel Roger Byron. “That is unlawful viewpoint discrimination. It should not be a crime to lovingly and compassionately approach another person to tell them about alternatives to abortion.”

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