Colorado pro-life sidewalk counselor battles state 'bubble law' she says curtails First Amendment

A woman who offers abortion alternatives outside clinics is battling a state law that prohibits her from approaching someone too closely, warning the rule has turned what she considers a compassionate conversation into a legal risk.

Wendy Faustin, a pro-life sidewalk counselor challenging Colorado's so-called "bubble law," told Fox News Digital the restrictions prevent her from quietly offering women information about pregnancy resource centers, adoption agencies and other alternatives to abortion.

"If you're within 100 feet of the entrance to an abortion clinic, I can't approach someone within 8 feet to give them any alternative information," Faustin said.

Last July, a federal judge rejected her challenge to the Colorado law. Her case is currently on appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

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Colorado state law and a Denver municipal ordinance prohibit individuals from knowingly approaching within eight feet of another person without their consent to distribute literature or engage in protest, education or counseling within 100 feet of a health care facility entrance, including abortion clinics. Violations are classified as a petty offense, which carries with it a fine or even a possible short jail sentence.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Colorado's 1993 law in its 2000 decision in Hill v. Colorado, ruling that the restrictions did not violate the First Amendment.

The restriction, she said, forces her to speak from a distance about an intensely personal subject, potentially allowing others to overhear conversations she would prefer to keep private.

"I would rather be able to just walk up to somebody, offer them alternative information, places where they can get help," she said.

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"I believe that every woman who is facing this decision deserves to have all the possible information that she might need," Faustin said. "Sometimes she's feeling kind of backed into a corner by circumstances or maybe by other people, and she may not be aware that there can be help somewhere for her through a crisis pregnancy center, an adoption agency, and so that's all the information that I give is offering her information where she can get help and also information about the development of her baby."

Her attorney, Roger Byron, senior counsel for First Liberty Institute, argued the dispute extends far beyond abortion and raises fundamental questions about the First Amendment.

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"These laws literally make it a crime for Wendy to approach within 8 feet of a woman," Byron t