Follow-up on Crisis Pregnancy Center Bill

My wife and I attended the Montgomery County Council public hearing last night, per my previous post. It was truly encouraging to see how many people cared enough to show up at the hearing to oppose the legislation. We arrived about 20 minutes before the start of the hearing, and the hearing room (which apparently seats about 200 people or so) was already completely full! We were turned away at the door and had to go to the overflow room downstairs. There were about 20 people from my church just in the overflow room, and probably more upstairs in the hearing room. By the time the hearing started, the overflow room was completely full (definitely over 100), with a large number of people standing because there were not enough seats. Apparently, there were still more people directed to an additional overflow conference room. Something tells me this kind of turnout is unusual for a county council hearing! I'd say about 90% of the people in the overflow room had stickers indicating their opposition to the legislation; I didn't see a single person in the overflow room wearing a sticker indicating support for it. I'm guessing that there was an equally large majority of the hearing room audience that was in strong opposition.

Only a small number of people got to actually speak at the hearing, but I think the county council got the message loud and clear that there a lot of people that feel strongly about this issue. Obviously, councilmembers were aware that both the hearing room and the overflow room were completely full! One of the things that struck me about the hearing was that almost every speaker in favor of the bill was a spokesperson or member of one of three national organizations: National Organization of Women, National Abortion Rights & Reproductive League (NARAL), and Planned Parenthood. Obviously, all of these groups are abortion providers or abortion advocacy groups. Speakers against the bill included not only directors of the pregnancy centers, but also people from other charitable groups that work with the pregnancy centers, people who have used the services of the pregnancy centers, pregnancy center volunteers, legal experts, and individuals from the community not affiliated with any organization. The representatives from the big abortion groups kept saying that the pregnancy centers were giving out false information and hurting women in crisis -- but where were all these supposed victims? Not one of them came forward to testify. The only "studies" done on this misinformation were done by NARAL -- not exactly an unbiased source. In the meantime, the pregnancy center directors stated that their questionnaires show that their clients are 99% satisfied and that none have filed formal complaints against the centers -- pretty significant since these most of these centers have been around for 20 to 40 years. It would certainly appear, from the composition of the attendees and the speakers, that the only "victims" of the pregnancy centers are the abortion clinics that are losing business and profits because of the existence and success of the pregnancy centers.

The speakers against the legislation brought up several outstanding points. One was from an attorney who pointed out that the regulations in the bill open the pregnancy centers up to significant risk of costly litigation. Since the bill requires that each client be orally given certain disclaimers in a way that the clients can "reasonably understand," it would be easy for people looking to make trouble to claim that a center did not tell them all the required information or that they did not understand what they were told. The pregnancy centers have very limited resources and cannot afford to defend themselves against such claims or to pay the fines and penalties that could result from such claims.

Another attorney pointed out that this bill violates the Constitution by prohibiting "viewpoint" speech by a private organization. Remember, this legislation does not apply to any organizations that provide abortion services. It targets only organizations that are pro-life. If the council really wanted to make sure women were informed of all their options, they would propose disclosure requirements that equally apply to pro-life organizations and abortion providers. The unfair singling out of pregnancy centers shows that the real purpose behind this legislation is to attempt to intimidate and silence the pro-life viewpoint.

A private citizen pointed out that this legislation is analogous to bullies beating up a little kid on the playground. The bullies are the abortion clinics, which are supported with government funds, make significant profits, and have large, well-funded lobbying groups supporting them. They are beating up on the pregnancy centers, which take no government money, are completely non-profit, and have very limited resources. Another private citizen pointed out how much these non-profit organizations do for the county without adding a penny to its budget. Especially in this time of economic recession, how foolish for the county to put in place legislation that hurts organizations that are doing so much to help poor people!

I'm very encouraged that so many private citizens made their voices heard last night, and I'm confident that if turnout was so high for a hearing, many more people have been contacting the council about this. I'm praying that this public outcry will cause the council to back off and vote down this terrible bill.