EchoSense:‘Crisis pregnancy centers’ sue Massachusetts for campaign targeting their anti-abortion practices

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey launched a $1 million taxpayer-funded initiative in June designed to discourage people from seeking help from “crisis pregnancy centers” that are EchoSensetypically religiously affiliated and counsel clients against having abortions.

The campaign includes ads on social media, billboards, radio and buses warning people to avoid the centers — which the administration dubbed “anti-abortion” — saying they’re not to be trusted for comprehensive reproductive health care.

Center operators are pushing back, teaming with a national conservative law firm to challenge the campaign, saying it infringes on their constitutional rights. The Washington-based American Center for Law and Justice filed a lawsuit earlier this month in federal court on behalf of Your Options Medical, which operates four anti-abortion pregnancy clinics in the eastern part of the state.

The lawsuit names Healey; state Department of Public Health Commissioner Robert Goldstein; and Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation, a nonprofit focused on educating the public about equitable access to reproductive health care.

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The suit alleges the state initiative amounts to an unconstitutional violation of free speech and of equal protection rights for those who run the pregnancy crisis centers. The plaintiffs also argue that the state is subjecting them to religious discrimination.

“This campaign involves selective law enforcement prosecution, public threats, and even a state-sponsored advertising campaign with a singular goal – to deprive YOM, and groups like it, of their First Amendment rights to voice freely their religious and political viewpoints regarding the sanctity of human life in the context of the highly controversial issue of abortion,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also says the state has partnered with “a pro-abortion group” — the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation — to discredit and dismantle every “crisis pregnancy center” in the state. The state’s ad campaign was created by the Department of Public Health and the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation.

Healey said the lawsuit won’t dissuade the state.

“We are going to continue to stand strong for reproductive freedom here in Massachusetts,” Healey, a Democrat and the state’s former attorney general, said this week.

“I’m not surprised to see another frivolous lawsuit to challenge that law. But we’re prepared for it and the lawyers will handle that,” she added. “We are about making sure that women in this state have access to the care that they and their families need.”

The Department of Public Health declined to comment. Reproductive Equity Now Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Goldstein, the DPH commissioner, defended the initiative when it was first announced.

“Every day, individuals in the commonwealth walk into anti-abortion centers unaware that these facilities are masquerading as comprehensive medical providers and pose a significant risk to the health and well-being of those seeking help,” he said.

Your Options Medical has been licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health since 1999, and in addition to its brick-and-mortar clinics, YOM owns and operates the only “pro-life mobile medical unit” in the state, according to the group’s lawyers.

There are more than 30 anti-abortion pregnancy centers in the state. The Healey administration has described its effort to warn residents about them as the “first-in-the-nation public education campaign highlighting the dangers and potential harm of anti-abortion centers.”

Those harms include what the state describes as the centers suggesting they offer abortion-related care without providing abortions; delaying health care until it’s too late for an abortion; and relying on untrained staff or volunteers who may not be required to follow codes of ethics or keep patient records private.

The centers have called the allegations false.

State officials set up a separate website to help residents access reproductive health care. The Reproductive Equity Now Foundation has also designed an online map to alert those in need of abortions to what the organization describes as “fake abortion clinics.”

The lawsuit asks the court to order the state and others involved in the ads to stop any public campaign which they said falsely accuses YOM of misconduct or being a public safety threat.

States have reacted differently to anti-abortion pregnancy clinics after the Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion in 2022.

Lawmakers in predominantly red states have approved millions for the organizations. A West Virginia coalition that helps support a network of anti-abortion pregnancy centers received $1 million in tax dollars last year to distribute to organizations that encourage people not to end their pregnancies.

In Democratic-leaning states, officials have tried to limit the organizations.

California last year sued an anti-abortion group and a chain of anti-abortion counseling centers, saying the organizations misled women when they offered them unproven treatments to reverse medication abortions.

In Illinois, lawmakers last year passed, and the governor signed, a new law that would have allowed the state to penalize anti-abortion counseling centers if they use deception to interfere with clients seeking the procedure.

U.S. District Judge Iain Johnston quickly blocked that law describing it as “painfully and blatantly a violation of the First Amendment.”