A Superior Court judge heard final arguments Thursday in a constitutional challenge of a Quebec law that requires protesters to stay 50 metres away from abortion clinics.
The Quebec Life Coalition and other anti-abortion activists took the province to court over the law, which they say violates their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
On the other side of the courtroom, lawyers representing the Quebec attorney general and three facilities providing abortions argued the law must stand to protect the rights of women seeking those services.
Introduced in 2016, Section 16 of the Act Respecting Health Services and Social Services states that no person is permitted to demonstrate within 50 metres of a facility providing abortion service in any way that attempts to “dissuade a woman from obtaining such a service or contest or condemn her choice of obtaining or having obtained …