You know how in commercials for medicine they say in a really fast voice “thisproductwillmakeyoureyesbleedandyourhairfallout.”
Warnings such as those usually mean that you’re telling someone to avoid something dangerous. But our country is so backwards at this point that crisis pregnancy centers in some places have to “warn” women that entering into a crisis pregnancy center will NOT harm your baby or you in any way.
Why? Because the people who actually kill babies want them to. Make sense? Didn’t think so. But thankfully the Archdiocese of Baltimore is suing the city over the constitutionality of a law forcing crisis pregnancy centers to post signs saying they don’t kill babies.
Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien said the law is “a clear violation of these centers’ constitutional rights to free speech and their free exercise of religion.”
WJZ reports:
“Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake introduced the legislation when she was City Council president after meeting with abortion rights advocates, who complained that some clinics were providing inaccurate information, such as claiming that abortions are connected to breast cancer and other problems. Abortion opponents said the bill unfairly targets centers that provide good information and much-needed help for poor women. Violators could face a $150 fine.
I’m not sure I understand the argument from the mayor because if the center was telling people that there’s a link between abortion and breast cancer (which studies have actually shown to be the case) what does that have to do with them posting a sign saying they don’t kill babies there? Nothing. It’s not like the city passed a law saying that the center can’t talk about the abortion/breast cancer link. So it’s a complete non-sequitir.
The mayor doesn’t say that the centers are lying by telling women they perform abortions so her defense already looks pretty bad.
O’Brien announced the suit at a news conference at St. Brigid’s Catholic Church, which hosts one of three centers operated by the Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns.
The archdiocese said its complaint argues that the ordinance that went into effect in January “targets for speech regulation only one side of a contentious public, political debate,” which the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled violates the First Amendment. The archdiocese said the complaint also argues the ordinance also wrongly requires centers to state that they do not provide birth-control services when they provide “education about abstinence and natural family planning.”
I’m glad that the Archdiocese of Baltimore is challenging this clearly unconstitutional and unfair law. Good luck to them.
