Detroit City Council advances ordinance to create 'bubbles' around health care facilities

DETROIT — The Detroit City Council could vote as soon as Tuesday on a proposed ordinance that would create "bubble zones" around health care facilities, preventing people from protesting within 15 feet of a facility and limiting certain interactions up to 100 feet.

While the ordinance doesn't specify facilities that provide abortions, the measure has become a showdown between abortion advocates and opponents of the procedure, who say Detroit's proposed policy goes too far. Scores of people from both sides of the issue spoke during a council committee hearing Monday on the policy before it was voted to move to the full council on Tuesday.

Many critics who spoke during Monday's meeting said they were "sidewalk counselors," meaning people who approach women outside clinics to try to convince them not to have an abortion.

Monica Miller said she's been a sidewalk counselor outside of Detroit clinics for decades.

"I have talked many, many women out of abortions," she said. "We approach the moms, we accompany them to show them love and compassion. We need to be able to talk to them in a human real way, without this artificial 8-foot zone.

"If there is an incidence here and there, we can't be using a sledgehammer because occasionally something may come up," Miller said.

If approved, the ordinance would establish two types of "bubble zones" around health care facilities, a term referring to designated areas intended to create a physical or spatial separation between two or more entities or activities.

One bubble zone would be a 100-foot radius from the entrance to a health care facility, where people wouldn't be able to get within 8 feet of another person. The other zone would be a 15-foot radius where people would be prohibited from congregating, patrolling, picketing or demonstrating in front of the entrance ― with the exception of emergency, public safety and security personnel

Emma Howland-Bolton of Detroit pointed out that many of the opponents who spoke Monday said they didn't live in the city.

"We have overwhelming White male protestors who do not live in Detroit who . . . travel to our city specifically to target women in Detroit, and . . . tell these women of what they can and cannot do and make them feel unsafe," said Howland-Bolton, who supports the ordinance.

After hearing about two hours of public comment, Detroit City Councilmembers Gabriela Santiago-Romero, Scott Benson and Mary Waters voted to advance the proposed ordinance to the full council, which could take action on the measure as soon as Tuesday.

Benson said what he didn't hear during the dozens of public comments Monday was how a "buffer of 8 or 15 feet would stop the expression of free speech." He added: "It's simply protective." He added other municipalities nationwide have similar protective zones for facilities that offer psychiatric facilities.

Santiago-Romero, who introduced the proposed initiative, said she had proof women and others were being harassed by anti-abortion advocates outside facilities. She visited a Detroit health care clinic Saturday and as she walked to the entrance a "man in his early 20s, without asking me anything, said 'I'm here to save your baby. Please don't kill your baby.'" Santiago-Romero is not pregnant, she said.

"In those moments, I was numb, I couldn't say anything. I felt overwhelmed," she said.

At the meeting, she held up a notebook binder that she said was "full of instances" of people being harassed by protesters outside facilities as well as the photos of the vehicle of protesters who have out-of-state license plates.

"We have people from outside of the city coming and telling our residents what to do with our bodies," Santiago-Romero said. "And quite frankly, it is not all peaceful."

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