Opinion ID: 1175747
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Significant State Interest

Text: A valid place restriction also must serve a significant governmental interest. (Citations omitted.) Heffron, 452 U.S. at 649. Here, the principal justifications for the trial court's geographical restriction were (1) to facilitate actual ingress into and egress from the Medical Building, and (2) to avoid the heightened coercive impact suffered by patients, staff and visitors due to the conduct of the picketers in close proximity to the only public entrance to the Medical Building. A litany of Supreme Court cases recognize that the State has a substantial interest in keeping community streets and sidewalks open and available for movement of people and property. See Hague v. Committee for Indus. Org., 307 U.S. 496, 515, 83 L.Ed. 1423, 59 S.Ct. 954 (1939); Schneider v. New Jersey, 308 U.S. 147, 160-61, 84 L.Ed. 155, 60 S.Ct. 146 (1939); Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 451, 82 L.Ed. 949, 58 S.Ct. 666 (1938); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 306-07, 84 L.Ed. 1213, 60 S.Ct. 900, 128 A.L.R. 1352 (1940); Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U.S. 569, 574, 85 L.Ed. 1049, 61 S.Ct. 762, 133 A.L.R. 1396 (1941). In Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 559, 564, 13 L.Ed.2d 487, 85 S.Ct. 476 (1965), the Court indicated that because of the special nature of the place, persons could be constitutionally prohibited from picketing in or near a courthouse with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice. Likewise, in Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 611, 616, 20 L.Ed.2d 182, 88 S.Ct. 1335 (1968), the Supreme Court upheld a statute which prohibited picketing in such a manner as to obstruct or unreasonably interfere with free ingress or egress to and from any courthouse. In Heffron v. International Soc'y for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U.S. 640, 649-50, 69 L.Ed.2d 298, 101 S.Ct. 2559 (1981), the Court recognized a State's significant interest in maintaining the orderly movement of a crowd at a large state fair. The Court began by noting that a State's interest in protecting the `safety and convenience' of persons using a public forum is a valid governmental objective. Heffron, at 650. After recognizing that consideration of a forum's special attributes is relevant to the constitutionality of a regulation, the Court went on to distinguish public streets from a public fairground, noting that any comparisons to public streets are necessarily inexact. Heffron, at 650-51. Admittedly, a public sidewalk differs markedly from a large public fairground. Nevertheless, an examination of the special attributes of the Sixth Avenue sidewalk and the facility it fronts convinces this court that there is a significant State interest in regulation. As shown by numerous photographs, the sidewalk is relatively narrow; if two people are walking abreast, a third cannot pass. In the winter, when there is snow on the ground, the sidewalk only can accommodate persons walking single file. Most importantly, this narrow sidewalk fronts a medical clinic which provides needed, and sometimes emergency, medical care to citizens of the state. In Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comm'ty Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 21 L.Ed.2d 731, 89 S.Ct. 733 (1969) the Supreme Court held the school district could not punish students for wearing black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam war. In Grayned v. Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 117-18, 33 L.Ed.2d 222, 92 S.Ct. 2294 (1972), however, the Court dismissed the idea that Tinker stood for the proposition that anyone had an absolute constitutional right to use all parts of a school building or its immediate environs for his unlimited expressive purposes. According to the Court, the crucial question is whether the manner of expression is basically incompatible with the normal activity of a particular place at a particular time. Grayned, at 116. [4] The trial court found that picketers blocked ingress and egress of patients visiting the Medical Building. This type of conduct clearly is incompatible with the normal activity of the Medical Building  the treatment of persons requiring medical care. In Grayned, the Court recognized that the city had a compelling interest in having an undisrupted school session conducive to the students' learning ... Grayned, at 119. Likewise, this State has an equally substantial interest in ensuring its citizens unimpeded access to necessary medical care. In the trial court's opinion, this interest could be served only by restricting picketing to Stevens Avenue, away from the public entrance to the Medical Building. Even if the State's interest might be served adequately by a more narrowly tailored injunction, we believe the State has a compelling interest in geographically restricting the picketing to Stevens Avenue. As stated above, the second principal justification for the place restriction was to reduce the coercive impact of picketing upon staff and patients of the medical clinic. In Heffron v. International Soc'y for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., supra , the petitioners asserted the State's interest in protecting fairgoers from being harassed or otherwise bothered, likening fairgoers to the captive audience discussed in Lehman v. Shaker Heights, 418 U.S. 298, 41 L.Ed.2d 770, 94 S.Ct. 2714 (1974). The Court concluded, however, that it need not reach the constitutional sufficiency of that particular interest because of its holding that the regulation was justified solely by the State's interest in crowd control. Heffron, 452 U.S. at 650. Thus, the question remains whether a State's interest in reducing the coercive impact of protected expressive activity is sufficiently significant to warrant a reasonable place restriction. Speech does not lose its protected character simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action. NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 910, 73 L.Ed.2d 1215, 102 S.Ct. 3409 (1982); Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U.S. 415, 419, 29 L.Ed.2d 1, 91 S.Ct. 1575 (1971). According to the Supreme Court, [t]here is a `profound national commitment' to the principle that `debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.' Claiborne, at 913 (quoting New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270, 11 L.Ed.2d 686, 84 S.Ct. 710, 95 A.L.R.2d 1412 (1964)). In the words of Justice Rutledge, `Free trade in ideas' means free trade in the opportunity to persuade to action, not merely to describe facts. Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 537, 89 L.Ed. 430, 65 S.Ct. 315 (1945). [5] Notwithstanding our profound national commitment to free speech, the First Amendment admits of no absolutes. The Supreme Court has regularly rejected the assertion that people who wish `to propagandize protests or views have a constitutional right to do so whenever and however and wherever they please.' (Citations omitted.) United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 177-78, 75 L.Ed.2d 736, 103 S.Ct. 1702 (1983). This flexibility in First Amendment doctrine is reflected by the principle that speech may be regulated in order to serve a substantial state interest. Accordingly, it follows that the State may regulate even coercive speech if a sufficiently significant interest exists for doing so. In Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 35 L.Ed.2d 147, 93 S.Ct. 705 (1973), the Supreme Court held that a constitutional right of privacy [3] protects a woman's decision whether to have an abortion. [4] Roe v. Wade , at 153. The right of privacy in this context involves different interests, including a woman's freedom to make a decision to have an abortion and to be able to effectuate that decision. See Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 599-600, 51 L.Ed.2d 64, 97 S.Ct. 869 (1977); Family Life League v. Department of Pub. Aid, 132 Ill. App.3d 929, 931-32, 478 N.E.2d 432, 434 (1985). The right of privacy dictates protection of the private relationship between a woman and her physician, Roe v. Wade , at 153, and the physician's right to freely practice medicine and perform legal abortions without coercive outside restraints. See Nyberg v. Virginia, 495 F.2d 1342, 1344 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 891 (1974). The ability of a woman to make and effectuate her decision to obtain an abortion depends upon relatively free access to the counseling and care of a licensed physician. Similarly, both the abortion decision and the woman's ability to effectuate that decision necessarily are dependent upon and intertwined with the willingness and ability of the physician to provide the care and counseling sought by the patient. See Akron v. Akron Ctr. for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U.S. 416, 76 L.Ed.2d 687, 103 S.Ct. 2481 (1983). As stated by the Court in Akron, at 427, the full vindication of the woman's fundamental right necessarily requires that her physician be given `the room he needs to make his best medical judgment.' (Citations omitted.) As the foregoing suggests, picketing in close proximity to a clinic in which abortions are provided can be expected to impinge upon a woman's constitutional right of privacy in two ways. First, the very presence of antiabortion picketers directly in front of the clinic could have such a coercive impact upon a woman that she forgoes the exercise of that right or seeks to exercise it elsewhere under the care of a licensed or unlicensed physician not of her first choosing. If a woman decides to visit the clinic anyway, picketers' conduct actually might have a deleterious impact upon the procedure itself. As recently noted by a federal district court judge, Women entering and leaving clinics have been verbally harassed; the effect of such harassment has been to increase the level of anxiety a woman feels and to exacerbate any emotional problems associated with the abortion decision and procedure which in turn may have an adverse effect on the medical procedure itself and on the patient's psychological well-being thereafter. American College of Ob. & Gyn. v. Thornburgh, 613 F. Supp. 656, 666 (E.D. Pa. 1985), aff'd, ___ U.S. ___, 90 L.Ed.2d 779, 106 S.Ct. 2169 (1986). These consequences are unacceptable given the constitutional protection afforded the abortion decision by Roe v. Wade . Second, continued harassment of physicians as they enter their lawful place of business may cause them to refuse to perform legal abortions for women. Accordingly, women would be denied the opportunity to effectuate their constitutional right to obtain an abortion within the ambit of Roe v. Wade . In the words of an Illinois appellate court, [r]ecognition of this reality is a significant consideration here. In our present social climate of dangerous emotional highs on both sides of the abortion issue, it can hardly be denied that the insidious threat of harassment and harm to physicians performing legal abortions and the terrorism of abortion clinics by antiabortion vigilante groups are very real. Family Life League, at 932. In Washington, such harassment has persuaded physicians in numerous counties to stop performing abortions. Antiabortionists have proclaimed 21 counties `abortion-free zones' and announced plans to put pressure on physicians in Washington's other 18 counties. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Aug. 22, 1985, at A1, col. 2. Amici set forth the statistics regarding clinic harassment and violence, including the arson attacks on clinics performing abortion services in Bellingham and Everett. Although members of Share have not engaged in such violence, the trial court found their picketing was aggressive, disorderly, and coercive, and that therefore physicians had a well grounded fear for the continued viability of their lawful medical practice. If this harassment continues, we can reasonably conclude that the respondent physicians eventually might refuse to participate in a woman's abortion decision. On the other hand, if the respondent building owner perceives a serious impact upon his ability to fill tenancies in the Medical Building due to such harassment, he might be unwilling to execute or renew leases with physicians who provide abortions. Either way, the coercive presence of the picketers directly in front of the Medical Building would severely compromise the ability of a woman to effectuate the abortion decision, in turn violating the woman's constitutional right of privacy under Roe v. Wade, supra . Given this court's previous commitment to personal privacy, see, e.g., State v. Koome, 84 Wn.2d 901, 530 P.2d 260 (1975) (minor's right to abortion); In re Colyer, 99 Wn.2d 114, 660 P.2d 738 (1983) (patient's right to die); In re Rosier, 105 Wn.2d 606, 717 P.2d 1353 (1986) (privacy interest in personal information), protection of that right, even from private invasion, constitutes a compelling state interest justifying a reasonable place restriction on picketing.