{"id":188524,"date":"2018-09-19T13:45:25","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T18:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=188524"},"modified":"2018-09-16T19:57:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-17T00:57:39","slug":"baltimore-free-speech-pregnancy-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baltimore-free-speech-pregnancy-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Baltimore to pay $1.1 million to pregnancy center over free speech ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

(Pregnancy Help News<\/a>)\u00a0Ever since the Supreme Court struck down an anti-pregnancy center law this summer in NIFLA v. Becerra<\/em><\/a>, cities and states across the country have been grappling with what to do with their own blatantly unconstitutional measures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s Baltimore\u2019s turn, as months after the historic ruling and years after repeated court losses, the city seems to have finally gotten the message that its law is in fact unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Baltimore\u2019s spending board voted to pay $1.1 million<\/a> to cover the legal fees of Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns<\/a>\u2014a pregnancy help center that serves 1,200 clients annually\u2014a federal court ruled in January that the city law violated the center\u2019s First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

Similar to the onerous California law struck down in NIFLA<\/em>, the 2009 city ordinance forced the city\u2019s Christian nonprofit pregnancy centers to post signage in their waiting rooms saying they do not offer or refer for abortions. Leana Wen\u2014who was named as Planned Parenthood\u2019s CEO yesterday<\/a>\u2014would bear responsibility<\/a>\u00a0for enforcing the law in her capacity as Baltimore\u2019s health commissioner.<\/p>\n

READ: Where can pregnant rape victims and prostitutes get help? Pregnancy centers.<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

But the law didn\u2019t stand for long when a federal court ruled that it was an unconstitutional infringement\u00a0<\/a>on the First Amendment rights of Baltimore pregnancy centers in 2011. Rather than accept the ruling, Baltimore appealed the decision, dragging the city\u2019s pregnancy centers and taxpayers through a pointless legal fight for another six years.<\/p>\n

Finally, this January, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the city to \u201clay down the arms of compelled speech,\u201d<\/a> noting the outstanding dearth of evidence against a single pregnancy center.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter seven years of litigation and a 1,295-page record before us, the City does not identify a single example of a woman who entered the Greater Baltimore Center\u2019s waiting room under the misimpression that she could obtain an abortion there,\u201d wrote<\/a> Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III.<\/p>\n

After wasting taxpayer dollars on trashing the work of pregnancy centers for nearly a decade, the city\u2019s settlement hardly feels like a victory to Greater Baltimore Pregnancy Choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am enormously disappointed that there would be this level of litigation over what we thought was a very clear violation of the First Amendment,\u201d Thomas Schetelich, chairman of the pregnancy center\u2019s board of directors, told the Baltimore Sun<\/em><\/a>. \u201cWe have no joy that we\u2019ve won this case. We have no joy that we had to litigate this for nine years.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ: Supreme Court ruling on California pregnancy centers a hopeful sign to other states<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

But City Council President Bernard C. \u201cJack\u201d Young, who cast the lone vote against the payout, saw things differently. Rather than recognize the enormous harm caused by the city\u2019s extraordinary hubris, Young decided to cast his city as the victim in the fight. According to the Sun, \u201c[H]e said the challenge by a religious organization, \u2018knowing that Baltimore is a poor city, is in poor taste.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International<\/a>\u2014a global network of 2,600 pregnancy help centers\u2014called out the council president\u2019s hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city spent several extra years spending taxpayer dollars on legal activities because they chose to appeal the first ruling they lost,\u201d said Godsey. \u201cCity Council President Young should\u2019ve been more mindful of his own stewardship responsibilities for his \u2018poor city\u2019 and the \u2018poor taste\u2019 it is to carry the water for Big Abortion when there are far more pressing needs of importance to his constituency.\u201d<\/p>\n

As states like Michigan<\/a> and Connecticut<\/a> consider similar laws in direct contradiction to the NIFLA<\/em> ruling, Baltimore stands as the latest example of the unnecessary financial and political costs associated with pursuing such unconstitutional and unethical free speech violations.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published at Pregnancy Help New<\/a>s and is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Pregnancy Help News)\u00a0Ever since the Supreme Court struck down an anti-pregnancy center law this summer in NIFLA v. Becerra, cities and states across the country have been grappling with what to do with their own blatantly unconstitutional measures. Now, it\u2019s Baltimore\u2019s turn, as months after the historic ruling and years after repeated court losses, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":420,"featured_media":169027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nBaltimore to pay $1.1 million to pregnancy center over free speech ruling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As Michigan and Connecticut consider similar laws against pregnancy centers, Baltimore is the latest example of the costs of such free speech violations.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/baltimore-free-speech-pregnancy-center\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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