Cite as: 512 U. S. 753 (1994)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
Petitioners' "counseling" of the clinic's patients is a form of expression analogous to labor picketing. It is a mixture of conduct and communication. "In the labor context, it is the conduct element rather than the particular idea being expressed that often provides the most persuasive deterrent to third persons about to enter a business establishment." NLRB v. Retail Store Employees, 447 U. S. 607, 619 (1980) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in result). As with picketing, the principal reason why handbills containing the same message are so much less effective than "counseling" is that "the former depend entirely on the persuasive force of the idea." Ibid. Just as it protects picketing, the First Amendment protects the speaker's right to offer "sidewalk counseling" to all passers-by. That protection, however, does not encompass attempts to abuse an un-receptive or captive audience, at least under the circumstances of this case. One may register a public protest by placing a vulgar message on his jacket and, in so doing, expose unwilling viewers, Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 21-22 (1971). Nevertheless, that does not mean that he has an unqualified constitutional right to follow and harass an unwilling listener, especially one on her way to receive medical services. Cf. Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 116 (1972).
The "physically approaching" prohibition entered by the trial court is no broader than the protection necessary to provide relief for the violations it found. The trial judge entered this portion of the injunction only after concluding that the injunction was necessary to protect the clinic's patients and staff from "uninvited contacts, shadowing and stalking" by petitioners. App. 56. The protection is especially appropriate for the clinic patients given that the trial judge found that petitioners' prior conduct caused higher levels of "anxiety and hypertension" in the patients, increasing the risks associated with the procedures that the patients
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