Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western N. Y., 519 U.S. 357, 16 (1997)

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372

SCHENCK v. PRO-CHOICE NETWORK OF WESTERN N. Y.

Opinion of the Court

A Florida state court had issued a permanent injunction enjoining specified organizations and individuals from blocking or interfering with clinic access and from physically abusing people entering or leaving the clinic. Six months after the injunction issued, the court found that protesters still impeded access by demonstrating on the street and in the driveways, and that sidewalk counselors approached entering vehicles in an effort to hand literature to the occupants. In the face of this evidence, the court issued a broader injunction that enjoined the defendant protesters from " 'physically abusing, grabbing, intimidating, harassing, touching, pushing, shoving, crowding or assaulting' " anyone entering or leaving the clinic; from " 'congregating, picketing, patrolling, demonstrating or entering that portion of public right-of-way or private property within [36] feet of the property line of the Clinic' "; from approaching anyone " 'seeking the services of the Clinic' " who is within 300 feet of the clinic, unless the person " 'indicates a desire to communicate' "; and from making any noise or displaying any image which could be heard or seen inside the clinic. 512 U. S., at 759-760.

After determining that the injunction was not a prior restraint and was content neutral, id., at 762-764, we held that the proper test for evaluating content-neutral injunctions under the First Amendment was "whether the challenged provisions of the injunction burden no more speech than necessary to serve a significant government interest," id., at 765. The Florida Supreme Court had concluded that the injunction was based on a number of governmental interests: protecting a woman's freedom to seek pregnancy-related services, ensuring public safety and order, promoting the free flow of traffic on streets and sidewalks, protecting property rights, and protecting the medical privacy of patients whose psychological and physical well-being were threatened as they were held "captive" by medical circumstance. Id., at 767-768. We held that the combination of these interests was "quite sufficient to justify an appropriately tailored in-

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