By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A former Planned Parenthood escort who is now seated on the New York City Council is proposing legislation that would sharply curtail the work of crisis pregnancy centers that do not provide abortion and contraception.
In a report by CNA/EWTN News, Councilmember Jessica Lappin, who describes herself as having been a “trained clinic escort for Planned Parenthood” before being elected to public office, claims that pregnancy centers lure women into their sites by deceptive practices such as not disclosing that they don’t offer abortions or contraception.
Calling them “anti-choice centers masquerading as health clinics” Lappin’s bill would require all centers that don’t offer these services to post that information at the entrance of their waiting rooms and in advertisements, or face fines of up to $2,500.
Backers of the bill say it is needed because women visiting the crisis pregnancy centers are frequently given “factually inaccurate information” and are “forced to watch videos.”
Opponents of the bill say it mirrors similar measures being taken in cities across the country by pro-abortion groups and may be part of a “nationwide strategy” to make sure women who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy will have no other choice but abortion.
It is “part of a national strategy by Planned Parenthood and NARAL to attack pro-life pregnancy centers,” said Christopher Bell, co-founder with Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR, of Good Counsel Inc., which operates with “maternity homes” for mothers and babies before and after birth.
Bell warned that the bill is so broad that anyone counseling or aiding a pregnant woman could come under its jurisdiction “so that they can begin to write regulations on what you have to say and can’t say.”
Similar proposals have “failed miserably” in several other state legislatures, he told CNA, but the proposals have won approval in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Montgomery County, Md.
Chris Slattery, president Expectant Mother Care (EMC) Frontline Pregnancy Centers, which is also a target of the new legislation, called it an “outrageous attack on the First Amendment rights of law-abiding, helpful resource centers.”
He said the proposal was a “set of unconstitutional laws to cripple our work with a new free speech-strangling bill to strictly regulate our advertising and outreach with the threats of staggering fines, and probable shutdowns of our offices aimed at crippling our work of ministry to abortion minded clients.”
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