GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (LifeSiteNews) — A West Michigan town might be on the verge of taking steps to silence pro-lifers.

Grand Rapids is the second largest city in the Wolverine State. Dr. Thomas Gordon operated an abortion clinic in the city’s Midtown area beginning in the 1980s. He died in 2023 at the age of 74, which resulted in his Heritage Clinic for Women being closed in 2024.

Pro-life activists held many protests, prayer rallies, and 40 Days for Life events at the location for decades, often suffering harassment. In 2020 Dr. Monica Miller lead a Red Rose Rescue at the facility.

Gordon’s facility was the most popular destination in the area for women seeking abortions. Planned Parenthood also operates a center less than one mile southeast of the facility. It is the only abortion center in the area and pro-lifers have protested on the sidewalk outside as well.

In August, Grand Rapids’ interim attorney Phil Strom suggested commissioners look into passing an ordinance that bans amplified sound such as megaphones and loudspeakers outside medical facilities.

Local media FOX 17 WXMI published a report Tuesday stating that city officials are now looking more closely at whether a stricter noise ordinance should be enforced.

“City staff presented the idea of ‘No person shall operate any device creating amplified sound within 100 feet of a health care facility,’” reporter Matt Witkos said in his story. He then shared a quote he obtained from Strom.

READ: Pro-abortion judge recuses himself from ‘buffer zone’ case after Catholic mother’s challenge

“This isn’t a broad issue that’s being felt by other medical facilities in our city. But they were warmed to the idea of regulating amplified sound to protect their patients and their employees from people making noise or protesting around their facilities,” Strom told Witkos.

Grand Rapids’ police chief also told Witkos that officers are dispatched to the area on a “weekly basis, if not more,” an indication that pro-lifers have ramped up their efforts at the location in recent years.

Grand Rapids operates under a commissioner system with six non-partisan commissioners. Former Democratic State Rep. David LeGrand is the city’s current mayor.

During a recent meeting, commissioners were mixed on what the best course of action should be on the ordinance. Some suggested that further efforts to investigate the matter were needed. Strom told officials there is also a concern over what constitutes a “health care facility.”

“Any time there are competitive constitutional right at play, like the First Amendment and the right to privacy, it causes real conversation,” Strom said in August.

Earlier this year the state of Maine sued a preacher for protesting outside of a Planned Parenthood location, claiming that he violated the Maine Civil Rights Act by speaking via microphone and playing worship music in the vicinity of the building. He was accused of 12 violations of the Maine Civil Rights Act, each finable up to $5,000 for a potential penalty as high as $60,000.

The abortion industry relies on a variety of legal tactics to try to quash peaceful protest and sidewalk counseling outside their locations. In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court gave pro-abortion bubble (or buffer) zone laws a reprieve when it refused to hear Bruni v. City of Pittsburgh, which concerned a 2005 ordinance requiring pro-life activists to stay more than 15 feet away from the entrances to abortion facilities, effectively keeping pro-lifers from communicating with women entering or exiting the building to appeal to them to choose life or offer them assistance with abortion alternatives.

“Bubble zone” laws are especially common in Canada and the United Kingdom.