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Advancing American Freedom led a coalition of 27 other amici in filing an amicus brief in A Woman’s Concern v. Healey. In Healey, a Massachusetts pregnancy resource center seeks judicial relief after the state engaged in a concerted campaign to harass pro-life pregnancy centers.
A Woman’s Concern, a pro-life pregnancy resource center in Massachusetts which does business as Your Options Medical Center, had never, in 25 years, been the subject of a complaint to the state about its efforts to help women with unplanned pregnancies. Yet, after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade, the Massachusetts state government mobilized and coordinated with a private organization to target Your Options and similar pregnancy resource centers.
America’s system of ordered liberty is undermined when government officials abuse their power to advance a political agenda at any cost. Twice in recent years, government officials taking similar actions have asked lower courts to toss challenges to their censorship campaigns, and the lower courts have obliged. In both instances, the Supreme Court has vacated and remanded those dismissals, giving the victims their day in court. The First Circuit should follow the Supreme Court’s example and do so again in this case.
“Government officials should not be able to use their power to target those with whom they disagree politically. Yet that’s exactly what happened in Massachusetts, where the state government targeted Your Options and other pregnancy centers, claiming in a public campaign that they are ‘fake clinics’ that are ‘dangerous’ and ‘use deceptive advertising.’ Unsurprisingly, a Your Options building was vandalized fifteen days later,” said AAF General Counsel J. Marc Wheat. “Pro-life pregnancy resource centers do invaluable work on the ground helping women navigate unplanned pregnancies. When states seek to burden these clinics with smear campaigns, investigations, and subpoenas, the clinics must have access to judicial relief. We urge the First Circuit to provide that relief here.”