DETROIT — The Detroit City Council on Tuesday passed a proposed ordinance that would create “bubble zones” around medical facilities, prevent people from protesting within 15 feet of the facility, and limit certain interactions to up to 100 feet. There is a possibility that it will be voted on.
Although the ordinance does not specify which facilities will provide abortions, the measure pits abortion advocates against opponents who say Detroit’s proposed policy goes too far. A number of people on both sides of the issue spoke at a parliamentary committee hearing on policy on Monday before the vote to move it to the full Congress on Tuesday.
Many critics who spoke at Monday’s meeting said they meant “sidewalk counselors,” meaning people who approach women outside clinics and try to persuade them not to have an abortion.
Monica Miller said she has worked as a sidewalk counselor outside a Detroit clinic for decades.
“I’ve convinced so many women not to have abortions,” she said. “We need to be close to mothers, be there for them, show them love and care. We need to be able to talk to them in a real, human way, without an artificial eight-foot zone.
“If you have outbreaks here and there, you can’t use a sledgehammer because sometimes things can happen,” Miller said.
If passed, the ordinance would create two types of “bubble zones” around health care facilities, which are designed to provide physical or spatial separation between two or more business entities or activities. This is a term used to refer to designated areas.
One bubble zone is a 100-foot radius from the entrance to a medical facility, where you cannot come within 8 feet of another person. The other zone is a 15-foot radius where people are prohibited from assembling, patrolling, picketing or demonstrating in front of entrances, except for emergency, public safety and security personnel.
Emma Howland Bolton of Detroit noted that many of the protesters who spoke Monday said they did not live in the city.
“The protesters are overwhelmingly white male protesters who don’t live in Detroit, and they…came to our city to specifically target Detroit women…and ask them what they can do. “We teach them what they can’t do and make them feel that they are in danger.” Howland Bolton supports the ordinance.
After hearing about two hours of public comment, Detroit City Council members Gabriela Santiago-Romero, Scott Benson and Mary Waters voted to send the proposed ordinance to the full council, which will issue it as early as Tuesday. Action may be taken on this bill.
Benson said what was not heard in the dozens of public comments made Monday was “how an 8-foot or 15-foot buffer would inhibit free speech expression.” said. He added: “It’s just for protection.” He added that other municipalities across the country have created similar safeguards for facilities that provide psychiatric facilities.
Santiago Romero, who introduced the proposed initiative, said he had evidence that women and others were being harassed by anti-abortion protesters outside the facilities. She visited a medical clinic in Detroit on Saturday, and as she walked toward the entrance, “a man in his early 20s, without asking me anything, said to me, ‘I’m here to save your baby.’ Please don’t kill your baby,”’ Santiago said. – She said Romero is not pregnant.
“At that moment, I was numb and couldn’t say anything. I was overwhelmed,” she said.
At the rally, she held up a binder of notebooks containing “numerous examples” of people being harassed by protesters outside facilities, as well as demonstrators’ cars with out-of-state license plates. There was also a photo of.
“People come from outside the city and teach the residents what to do with our bodies,” Santiago Romero said. “And frankly, it’s not all peaceful.”
laguilar@detroitnews.com
