The Archdiocese of Baltimore is suing the city of Baltimore over a new ordinance requiring pregnancy centers that don't provide abortions to post signs saying so, Archbishop Edwin O'Brien announced Monday.
The ordinance "is a clear violation of these centers' constitutional rights to free speech and their free exercise of religion," O'Brien said.
The suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court names the city, mayor, the City Council and the city's health commissioner and health department as defendants. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake introduced the legislation when she was City Council president after meeting with abortion rights advocates, who complained that some clinics were providing inaccurate information, such as claiming that abortions are connected to breast cancer and other problems.
"This bill is not an abortion debate. This bill is about truth in advertising," Rawlings-Blake said at the time. "I think, to an extent, the advocates on both sides have kind of overblown this issue."
Abortion opponents said the bill unfairly targets centers that provide good information and much-needed help for poor women. Violators could face a $150 fine.
Baltimore City Solicitor George Nilson issued a statement Monday saying the city "will defend the ordinance to what we anticipate will be a successful conclusion."
"Our Office approved the constitutionality of the measure when it was pending before the Council," Nilson added.
O'Brien announced the suit at a news conference at St. Brigid's Catholic Church, which hosts one of three centers operated by the Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns.
The archdiocese says the ordinance is a violation of free speech and free exercise of religion.
O'Brien also said in a statement issued by the archdiocese that the requirement only applies to centers that do not provide abortions, which he said is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
"We have confidence that our position is right. We expect the court to so declare," said Thomas Schetelich of the Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns.
The archdiocese said its complaint argues that the ordinance that went into effect in January "targets for speech regulation only one side of a contentious public, political debate," which the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled violates the First Amendment.
The archdiocese said the complaint also argues the ordinance also wrongly requires centers to state that they do not provide birth-control services when they provide "education about abstinence and natural family planning."
Carol A. Clews, executive director of the Center for Pregnancy Concerns, a nonprofit, anti-abortion organization that receives donations from religious groups, said at the news conference that the centers have complied with the law and posted the signs.
She added that center clients have never complained "about being misled in any way or problems with the services they've received."
The legal work on the church's behalf is being done on a pro-bono basis.
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