Massachusetts Moves to Cripple Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers While Stripping Oversight From Late-Term Abortionists

Massachusetts claims that women must be protected from pro-life Pregnancy Resource Centers (PRCs) through government scrutiny, public warnings, and regulatory oversight. Yet Governor Maura Healey, a defendant in our lawsuit to protect PRC’s, just signed a law allowing abortion up until the moment of birth and removing critical safeguards and public-health oversight from those late-term abortion procedures.

The contradiction could not be clearer. Massachusetts warns women away from organizations that offer pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, counseling, diapers, baby clothes, and support, while reducing oversight of an invasive procedure whose very purpose is to end the life of an unborn child.

The ACLJ represents A Woman’s Concern, Inc., which operates Your Options Medical (YOM), a Christian, pro-life pregnancy center that has served women and families in Massachusetts for decades. YOM offers free, compassionate assistance to women facing unexpected pregnancies. It does not perform abortions or refer women for abortions. Massachusetts nevertheless devoted taxpayer resources to a campaign branding organizations like our client as “dangerous,” “deceptive,” and a “public health threat.” The campaign urged the public to avoid and report pro-life centers while directing women toward abortion providers.

We challenged that campaign because the government cannot use its power to punish or suppress a religious viewpoint it disfavors. After the federal district court dismissed the case, we appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Massachusetts has now filed its response.

The Commonwealth’s brief repeatedly insists that its actions were about patient safety, transparency, medical standards, and informed decision-making. Massachusetts argues that the Department of Public Health must oversee licensed facilities, investigate complaints, enforce scope-of-practice requirements, and ensure that providers operate safely. It defends regulatory guidance directed at pregnancy centers as the ordinary work of government. 

Those arguments are difficult to reconcile with what Massachusetts has just done.

On August 10, Governor Healey signed into law the so-called “Prioritizing Patient Access to Care” Act. The law permits abortion based on the professional judgment of a physician and provides that no medical-review process may override that judgment. The legislation also eliminates the requirement that late-term abortions be performed in a hospital and removes Department of Public Health oversight of the policies and protocols governing these procedures – eliminating safeguards previously required under Massachusetts law.

Consider the double standard.

PRCs do not perform abortions. They do not prescribe abortion drugs. They do not perform elective surgical procedures. They do not deliver babies. They exist to give women information, resources, and support through (and often beyond) pregnancy. As Massachusetts acknowledges, only four of approximately 30 pro-life pregnancy centers in the Commonwealth are licensed clinics subject to Department oversight.

Abortion providers are fundamentally different in that they provide dangerous and invasive drugs and procedures. Whether performed surgically or through abortion-inducing drugs, abortion involves medical intervention intended to cause the death of an unborn child. That is not an incidental result. It is the very purpose of the procedure.

Yet Massachusetts demands scrutiny of organizations that support mothers who continue their pregnancies while removing safeguards surrounding procedures that end pregnancies and take unborn lives.

If patient safety matters, it should matter everywhere.

If informed consent matters, it should matter everywhere.

If oversight matters, it should matter most when a procedure is invasive, irreversible, and intended to end a human life.

The Commonwealth’s position is even harder to defend given the allegations before the court. YOM identified abortion clinics that failed Department inspections and allegations involving outdated medications, sterile-equipment problems, biohazardous material, anesthesia practices, and controlled substances. YOM also alleged that at least one abortion clinic did not undergo the required inspections applied to licensed pregnancy centers. Yet Massachusetts dedicated at least a million-dollar public campaign to targeting pro-life organizations.

That is not a neutral commitment to patient safety. It is one standard for organizations that facilitate abortion and another for organizations that encourage women to choose life.

For YOM, this is not an abstract constitutional dispute. It is about the freedom to look a frightened woman in the eye and tell her she is strong, capable, and supported. It is about providing an ultrasound, diapers, baby clothes, counseling, and practical help. It is about affirming that both her life and the life of her unborn child have value.

Massachusetts has clearly established itself as an advocate for abortion. But it cannot use government power to marginalize and silence religious organizations because they offer women an alternative: life.

We at the ACLJ are hard at work preparing YOM’s reply brief to answer the Commonwealth’s arguments. We are also preparing for oral argument before the First Circuit, where we will vigorously defend YOM’s constitutional rights

This fight is bigger than one pregnancy center. We urge ACLJ members to stand with us, support this critical legal battle, and add their voices to the defense of pro-life PRCs. In a state that is increasingly hostile towards pre-born life and its defenders, your support matters now more than ever.

Take action with the ACLJ. Sign our petition: Stop the Abortion Industry’s War on Babies.