Can the police remove me for praying on the sidewalk outside an abortion clinic?

What is actually happening

A vague "you need to move along" is doing work that a written citation would not do. It is fishing for your silence and your permanent absence, because a person who leaves quietly and never returns costs the complaining party nothing and creates no record. Nobody wants to write down the rule they are enforcing, because the moment it is written it can be read and challenged. What looks like an arrest about to happen is usually a request dressed in a uniform.

The Unnamed Threat · Rule 9. Rule 9 says the threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. A hint that you could be arrested, with no ordinance named and no citation issued, does the work of an arrest without anyone having to justify one. Counter-Rule 9 is to name the worst case out loud and price it honestly, which usually shrinks it.

What Scripture says

“But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:19-20

What the book says · Chapter 20, The Mountain of Government: Christian Engagement in Law, Policy, and Administration

“The apostle gives us the model for engaging a hostile legal system. He did not try to overthrow Rome. He held Roman officials to their own laws in order to protect the Gospel. When magistrates beat him without trial, he refused a quiet release and demanded they escort him out personally, asserting his rights as a citizen (Acts 16:37). That is Counter-Rule 4 applied to the state.”

From Rules for Radical Christians, quoted exactly.

What the law generally says

In the United States, public sidewalks are generally treated as the most protected kind of public space for speech, prayer, and handing out literature, and government usually needs a solid reason to clear someone off one. At the same time, federal law generally forbids obstructing, intimidating, or physically blocking people who are entering or leaving a reproductive health facility, and that applies no matter how peaceful your intent is. Many cities and some states have buffer or bubble zones, noise limits, and driveway-obstruction rules that apply to everyone alike and are often upheld as reasonable limits on time, place, and manner. Private property, including a clinic's own walkway or parking lot, is generally a different matter from the public sidewalk, and the property line is not always where you think it is. Where the line falls, and which local ordinance is on the books, turns entirely on your state and city, which is what Ask looks up.

The words to use

"Officer, I'm praying on the public sidewalk and I'm not blocking anyone or speaking to anyone who hasn't spoken to me first. Am I being ordered to leave, and which ordinance am I being told I'm violating?"

Your move

1. Ask, politely and once, for the ordinance or policy by name, and ask whether you are being ordered to leave or merely asked. Write down the answer and the officer's name and badge number before you leave the curb.
2. Comply in the moment. Step back, keep your voice level, and do not argue the law on the sidewalk. You lose nothing by moving today and you lose everything by giving them a disorderly conduct charge to talk about instead.
3. That same day, write a dated account of what happened: time, location, exact words used, who else was present. Save any photos or video, including a shot of the sidewalk, the property line markings, and any posted signs.
4. Request the text of the local ordinance from the city or county clerk, in writing, and ask where the public right-of-way ends at that address. Public records requests are cheap and they create a record.
5. Contact a religious liberty legal organization before you return, and use Ask to find what your state and city actually permit at that location.

• Document the ground itself: photograph where the sidewalk meets clinic property, and note any painted lines or posted buffer markings.
• Ask for the ordinance number in writing, and ask whether a citation is being issued. If no citation issues, that is worth recording too.
• Do not touch anyone, do not stand in a driveway, and do not follow someone who has walked away from you. One of those turns a protected prayer into a federal problem.

Your situation, your state

This page is the general answer. Describe what is actually happening to you and Ask returns the answer for your situation and your state, with the law looked up and the exact words to use. Your first ask is free.

Not legal advice. When it stops being a conversation, a lawyer licensed in your state is the next call.