Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753 (1994), is a United States Supreme Court case where Petitioners challenged the constitutionality of an injunction entered by a Florida state court which prohibits antiabortion protesters from demonstrating in certain places, and in various ways outside of a health clinic that performs abortions.

The trial court then issued a broader injunction, for which the Petitioners challenge as a violation of their First Amendment constitutional rights.

Women's Health Center, Inc., brought an action for injunctive relief prohibiting Operation Rescue members from engaging in these activities.

[3] The Madsen majority sustained the constitutionality of the Clinic's thirty-six foot buffer zone and the noise-level provision, finding that they burdened no more speech than necessary to serve the injunction's goals.

First, the trial judge made reasonably clear that the issue of who was acting "in concert" with the named defendants was a matter to be taken up in individual cases, and not to be decided on the basis of protesters' viewpoints.

Second, petitioners themselves acknowledge that the governmental interests in protection of public safety and order, of the free flow of traffic, and of property rights are reflected in Florida law.

I part company with the Court, however, on its treatment of the second question presented, including its enunciation of the applicable standard of review.

[1] Concludes that under the circumstances the prohibition against physically approaching in the 300-foot zone around the clinic withstands the Petitioners’ First Amendment constitutional challenge.

The injunction in this case departs so far from the established jurisprudence of the Supreme Court that in any other context it would have been regarded as a candidate for summary reversal.