A staunchly pro-abortion member of the New York City Council is attempting to regulate crisis pregnancy centers that offer alternatives to abortion and provide support for women who choose to have their children rather than terminate their lives. Supporters of what is clearly regulation of speech say they just want truth in advertising. Is that really what they want? The president of a group that operates crisis centers say it’s an attempt to shut down speech with which pro-abortion advocates disagree.
NARAL Pro-Choice New York has also targeted Expectant Mother Care (EMC) Frontline Pregnancy Centers. The organization runs 12 pro-life counseling centers for pregnant women.
Its president, Chris Slattery, called the proposal an “outrageous attack on the First Amendment rights of law-abiding, helpful resource centers.”
He said that EMC has saved over 38,000 women from abortions in the last 25 years. Because of this, Slattery thought, the New York City Council will “particularly focus its slanderous accusations against us.”
“We serve the abortion-bound clients they want to stop us from reaching.”
He charged that 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.”
Bell also warned that the legislation compels speech and 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.”
“We’re not going to tolerate that,” said Bell.
No matter your view on abortion, this type of speech regulation should concern you. If the pro-abortion lobby succeeds with this anti-speech strategy, what will be the next issue to face speech regulation? What would you think if you are among the next group of people whose views are regulated by the state?