Pro-life efforts continue amid state campaign against PRCs

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

CLINTON - Billboards, a homily and a car crash jump-started some efforts by men to support women and children.

The Men of St. Joseph and Knights of Columbus Council 1701 at St. John, Guardian of Our Lady Parish, arranged for people involved in various pro-life efforts to speak at their church Aug. 30.  

Follow-up suggestions include promoting pro-life agencies’ fundraisers and supporting Visitation House in Worcester.  

Craig Schomp, a leader of the Men of St. Joseph, explained that the group helps their pastor as needed, and members study Scripture and go fishing together. They invited people to the Aug. 30 event to learn about pro-life work in and around the diocese.  

Speakers included an attorney, the director of the Worcester diocese’s Respect Life Office, and people aiding women with crisis pregnancies.  

Mr. Schomp said a series of events led to the men brainstorming about how they could help pro-life pregnancy resource centers, which resulted in forming the speakers’ platform.  

The men noticed billboards warning the public to avoid such pregnancy centers.  
Their pastor, Father James S. Mazzone “gave a wonderful homily” decrying this campaign by the Massachusetts government.  

And a car crashed in front of First Concern Pregnancy Resource Center in Clinton. Mr. Schomp said the men did not know the driver’s motive but the timing was suspicious.

A July 11 Clinton Police Department Facebook posting said that on July 9 a car was driven onto the sidewalk and into a building “in the area of” Coffeelands and First Concern and the operator “was cited and criminal charges pursued in Clinton District Court for unlicensed operation of a [motor vehicle] and operating negligently to endanger.”  

“We’ve been responding to a lot of threats” to crisis pregnancy centers, Sam Whiting, staff attorney for Massachusetts Family Institute, said in his talk at St. John’s. He told The Catholic Free Press that Massachusetts Family Institute, a faith-based pro-family advocacy organization, has responded on legal and legislative fronts.  

There have been different kinds of threats to pregnancy centers, from different sources.

Atty. Whiting said the threats go back to June 2022, when the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ruled that there is no constitutional right to abortion, returning the regulation of abortion to each state.

 Pro-life pregnancy centers have been vandalized and received written threats, he noted.  
In addition, state and local government officials have introduced legislation against what they called “deceptive practices” of such centers, without defining what deceptive meant, but MFI helped stop passage of this legislation in Worcester and Easthampton, he said.

The state Department of Public Health threatened to revoke licenses of medical professionals who work for a “deceptive” center, but so far has not done so, Atty. Whiting said. He said MFI threatened to sue the DPH if they revoke licenses.

The Massachusetts government has also been publicizing opposition to pro-life pregnancy centers.  

Atty. Whiting said the most recent major attack on pro-life centers in Massachusetts started last June with what he called the state’s “smear” campaign, which warns people to avoid such centers, as the state had done in 2022. The present campaign also names the centers.  
A June 10 press release on the website mass.gov/news/ promoted the campaign, created by the Department of Public Health in collaboration with the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation.

“’In Massachusetts, we are committed to protecting and expanding access to safe and legal abortion,” the press release quotes Gov. Maura Healey as saying.

Website information tells people where to go instead of pro-life centers, and how to file civil rights complaints against them and against health care professionals.

Atty. Whiting said that, in response to this campaign, Massachusetts Family Institute, through its Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center, filed a lawsuit Aug. 19 in federal district court in Boston.  

Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center is “serving as our local counsel” for this lawsuit, says aclj.org/pro-life, website of the Washington, D.C.-based American Center for Law and Justice. It says the lawsuit names as defendants Gov. Healey; Robert Goldstein, the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and Reproductive Equity Now Foundation and its executive director, Rebecca Hart Holder.  

The lawsuit alleges that “the state officials engaged in an overt viewpoint-based discrimination campaign – including harassment, suppression, and threats” against ACLJ client, Your Options Medical (which has four pregnancy centers in Massachusetts) and other pregnancy resource centers.

ACLJ says this “misleading” campaign involves selective law enforcement prosecution, and advertising aimed at depriving pregnancy centers of “their First Amendment rights to voice freely their religious and political viewpoints regarding the sanctity of human life,” and that “abortion providers do not receive the same scrutiny.”  

Atty. Whiting told The Catholic Free Press that the state wants to do as much as it can against pro-life centers without losing a lawsuit; state officials “think they can get away with” a “smear campaign,” framing it as involving only words.
 
But ACLJ says, “Their choice of words goes far beyond mere disagreement or criticism; the state has repeatedly accused” pregnancy centers of “illegal behavior like deception, misrepresentation, and fraud ...  

“These targeted, false, and baseless accusations established a system of informal censorship designed to suppress the pro-life viewpoint of our client,” ACLJ says. It says Your Options Medical is a Christian organization and medical clinic licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, operates lawfully and “has never had an actual patient complaint.”  

Atty. Whiting said he has not heard of a situation where crisis pregnancy centers were found to have acted illegally, despite state investigations of complaints pro-abortion organizations and activists lodge against them.  

Pregnancy Care Alliance, a project of Massachusetts Citizens for Life founded last year, is doing its own campaign, highlighting the good that pregnancy care centers do, and is also doing legislative advocacy, he said.

“In recognition of the fact that America’s Declaration of Independence acknowledges every person’s inalienable right to life, the mission of the Pregnancy Care Alliance of Massachusetts is to increase public awareness and understanding of the compassionate care, support, and material aid that pregnancy resource centers provide to pregnant women in need, so they may be treated with dignity and welcome the birth of their child,” says the website pregnancycarealliance.com.

Atty. Whiting pointed out the resilience of the pregnancy centers and added, “I would just honor that courage.” He suggested getting involved with one’s local center, not fearing to speak up for them and educating oneself.