The Abortion-Clinic Law Protecting Synagogues

Last week, the Department of Justice filed a civil rights lawsuit against a group of protesters who surrounded a New Jersey synagogue during an anti-Israel demonstration, accusing them of using force and obstruction to prevent Jewish worshippers from entering. The complaint — the first of its kind filed by the Department of Justice — describes protesters pushing past police barricades, entering synagogue property, and creating a scene so chaotic that congregants fled indoors for safety. It’s not the only such case. A separate lawsuit against CodePink is still unfolding after a 2024 protest outside Los Angeles’ Adas Torah Synagogue allegedly turned violent, leaving worshippers unable to leave or enter freely because of the chaos outside.

Given the highly charged environment surrounding anti-Israel protests, the DOJ’s action has sparked controversy. Critics worry that using a federal statute to target anti-Israel demonstrations could chill protected political protest. But the statute the government is relying on — the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act — has long been used to draw a constitutional line between protected advocacy and coercive obstruction.

Enacted in 1994 in response to a wave of violence outside abortion clinics, the FACE Act makes it illegal to use “force, threat of force or physical obstruction” to “intentionally injure, intimidate or interfere with” anyone seeking to enter a reproductive-health facility. Late in the legislative process, Congress added “places of religious worship,” extending the same protections to those seeking to enter synagogues, churches and mosques. For 30 years, federal appellate courts reviewing the statute have upheld it as consistent with the First Amendment, recognizing that protecting access to clinics or synagogues is not the same as punishing speech.

The FACE Act targets a specific kind of confrontation — when protest crosses the line from persuasion to coercion. “Force” and “threat of force” capture assaults and true threats, while “physical obstruction” refers to conduct that makes entry or exit impassable or unreasonably difficult. The law doesn’t prohibit protest or persuasion; it targets acts that block doors, surround entrances, or use threats of violence to make access impossible. Its focus is access, ensuring that people can reach a clinic or a synagogue without being physically prevented or placed in reasonable fear of harm.

When Congress added “places of religious worship” alongside clinics, it did so through an amendment offered by the then Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who described it as a matter of “fairness,” making sure that people of faith, whatever their beliefs, were equally protected from obstruction or intimidation. Courts and scholars, drawing on that legislative history, have since interpreted the addition as reinforcing the statute’s neutrality. It protects access to both abortion clinics and churches, to both moral conviction and religious exercise. And that neutrality has played out in practice. The statute has been invoked not only to protect abortion providers but also those on the other side of that debate — such as protesters outside clinics and pro-life pregnancy centers — when they were the targets of obstruction or threats. It is that neutrality that courts have leaned on in upholding the statute’s constitutionality. Because the FACE Act regulates conduct rather than content, it is considered a content-neutral law that serves an important government interest in preserving public safety and access to constitutionally protected spaces, while burdening as little speech as possible. As a result, courts have concluded that it satisfies the demands of the First Amendment.

Courts have also been careful not to let the statute sweep too broadly. Because the FACE Act operates near the line between expression and coercion, its terms — especially “intimidate” and “interfere” — require careful interpretation and application. Communications that blur the line between advocacy and threat can raise legitimate First Amendment concerns, and an overly broad reading of “intimidation” could risk criminalizing protest rather than coercion. Congress anticipated that risk, instructing that the Act “shall be construed and applied” in a manner consistent with the First Amendment. Federal courts have honored that limit, applying the statute narrowly to coercive conduct and “true threats” that create reasonable fear of harm. In one case, for example, an activist mailed a doctor a letter warning that “thousands of people” knew her name and that “someone” might place an explosive under her car. The letter never promised violence outright, but the court found that a jury could view it as a threat intended to deter the doctor from performing abortions. That case captured both the strength and restraint of the statute, reaching conduct that coerces but not speech that merely offends.

That balance between protest and obstruction is exactly what the Justice Department is now invoking in New Jersey. The government’s complaint describes conduct that, if proved, falls squarely within the statute’s core. Demonstrators allegedly forced their way past police barricades, entered synagogue property, physically assaulted attendees and created a threatening environment that impeded access to religious services. Those allegations involve “force, threat of force and physical obstruction” intended to “injure, intimidate, or interfere” with worshippers’ ability to enter and leave their synagogue — precisely the conduct the FACE Act was designed to reach. The complaint also points to a letter that protest organizers delivered to the home of a synagogue leader, accompanied by photographs of his residence and later posts publicizing his address. Standing alone, that letter may sit closer to the constitutional edge; its language reads more like a demand than a threat, and courts have been careful not to treat mere advocacy or unwelcome persuasion as “intimidation.” But in the context of the surrounding violence, the government argues that the letter forms part of a larger campaign of coercive conduct. In that sense, the case tests not new constitutional ground but familiar ones — the same line courts have drawn for decades between protest and obstruction.

A similar framework underlies the Adas Torah litigation in Los Angeles, where a federal district court applied the FACE Act in a house-of-worship context. The case arose from a June 23, 2024 anti-Israel protest outside the Adas Torah Synagogue, where demonstrators allegedly blocked driveways, pounded on vehicles, and clashed with police as congregants attempted to attend a religious event. The court drew the same constitutional line that earlier rulings had traced. Political advocacy and even incendiary rhetoric remain protected, but acts or symbols that reasonably convey threats of force do not. It dismissed claims against one group whose social-media posts merely called for protest but allowed the claim against CodePink to go forward, finding that its post showing the synagogue’s name and address within an inverted red triangle — a symbol allegedly used by Hamas to mark targets — could plausibly constitute a “threat of force” intended to intimidate Jewish worshippers or incite others to obstruct access. In short, the court applied the FACE Act as Congress intended, narrowly reaching coercive conduct but not protest itself.

For all the novelty of seeing the FACE Act invoked to protect synagogues from anti-Israel protests, its application here reflects continuity rather than reinvention. A statute born out of the abortion-clinic blockades of the 1990s is now being used to protect Jewish worshippers from threats and intimidation outside their synagogues. That continuity is a reminder of how the law, at its best, can safeguard access to conscience across profoundly different settings. In a moment when the war in Israel has become a flashpoint for American politics, it is striking that a statute first designed to protect abortion clinics can still draw a constitutional line that both protects protest and preserves the freedom to enter a sacred space without obstruction.

Michael A. Helfand is the Brenden-Mann Foundation Chair in Law and Religion and Co-Director, Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion & Ethics at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law as well as Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute.