Crisis pregnancy centers are suing Massachusetts for what the centers are calling a campaign targeting their pro-life practices. American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is representing the centers. Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center is co-counsel. AFN spoke with MLLC counsel Sam Whiting.
"We filed suit against Governor Maura Healey as well as the Massachusetts Department of Public Health because they are running a taxpayer-funded million-dollars-a-year campaign against pro-life pregnancy resource centers to try to discredit them," Whiting explains. "And ultimately, I think, [the state wants to] run them out of Massachusetts because of their political and religious beliefs and their opposition to abortion.
"We believe that is a violation of First Amendment rights and we're going to have to try to help them," he emphasizes.
The law firms say the governor and the state of Massachusetts "engaged in an overt viewpoint-based discrimination campaign including harassment, suppression, and threats," including threats to take away licenses and issue subpoenas.
Whiting says no other state is running this kind of "defamation campaign" against pro-life centers.
"It all kind of started back in the Summer of 2022 when the Dobbs decision was handed down from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade," the attorney offers. "In the wake of that [ruling] – even in very pro-abortion states like Massachusetts where there's really no threat to abortion – these abortion activists directed a lot of their outrage over Roe being overturned toward these pro-life charitable pregnancy resource centers."
This is a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. The law firms and crisis pregnancy centers are fully prepared for appeals, including one to the U.S. Supreme Court.
