The Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider overruling its precedent allowing protective "bubble" zones around abortion clinics and their patients, turning down the opportunity to hear a challenge from a Catholic sidewalk counselor in New York.

The justices refused to hear abortion opponent Debra Vitagliano's appeal of a lower court decision to dismiss her lawsuit against a Westchester County measure that limited protests outside abortion clinics.

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Vitagliano argued that the measure, passed in June 2022 and repealed two months later, violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment right to free speech.

Vitagliano, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, received support from several anti-abortion and religious groups as well as 14 Republican state attorneys general.

“There is no abortion exception to the First Amendment,” wrote the attorneys general in support of Vitagliano. "Sidewalk counseling is not second-class speech, and government restrictions on it must meet the same standards as every other content-based restriction."

In a brief order published Monday, however, the justices declined to hear the dispute, with no dissents noted.

The decision Monday upholds the 23-year-old precedent of Hill v. Colorado, which affirms the rights of states to limit speech-related conduct by location.

The law in Westchester County was modeled after the legislation in question in the Hill case, creating a floating 8-foot "bubble zone" around people within 100 feet of an abortion clinic. The law would have barred anyone from "knowingly" approaching a prospective patient of the clinic in order to protest, display a sign, counsel, or educate them without their consent.

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Planned Parenthood Federation of America senior policy adviser Beth Sousa said clinic violence has increased since the overturning of Roe v. Wade and that these types of zones help protect prospective patients and abortion providers from harassment "while still allowing protesters to convey their messages."

“If the First Amendment protects anything, it protects the right to engage in peaceful, face-to-face conversations about important matters on a public sidewalk," Vitagliano's attorneys wrote to the justices.