The entire 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is set to rehear en banc the case against a Baltimore law intended to deter women from seeking help at Pregnancy Resource Centers.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- Today, at the invitation of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Jubilee Campaign's Law of Life Project (LOLP) and the Alliance Defending Freedom again stood firmly behind the rights of City of Baltimore pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) to continue their life-saving work by updating and re-filing a friend of the court brief, initially filed more than a year ago, in consolidated cases against unnecessary and unconstitutional requirements to post a government notice intended by friends of the abortion industry to deter women from receiving the valuable care and counsel PRCs have to offer that abortion clinics do not reliably provide. The constitutionality of the law is currently being determined by the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sitting en banc after the same three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit, in separate rulings, held that the City of Baltimore in the Greater Baltimore Center case and Montgomery County in the Centro Tepeyac case had overstepped their constitutional authority by imposing such signage regulations. Oral argument in these cases before the Fourth Circuit sitting en banc is now set for December 6, 2012.
"Pregnancy centers, who voluntarily offer real help and hope to women without charge, shouldn't be and don't need to be told by the government how to care for women," said the Jubilee Campaign's General Counsel Sam Casey. "As invited by the Court, we updated and re-filed a 'friend of the court' brief today on behalf of thousands of doctors advising the court that pregnancy centers generally provide valuable, scientifically supportable information regarding the medical risks of induced abortion that is vital to provide a mother before she can provide her fully informed consent to continuing or terminating her pregnancy. Such information about risks related to an abortion and subsequent pregnancies, the risks of adverse mental consequences, and the risks of breast cancer are not always made available in an understandable form by an abortion provider."
In both the Greater Baltimore and Centro Tepeyac cases the city attempted to justify their extreme measures by pointing to two "investigative reports" published by pro-abortion proponents to argue that PRC's were giving false information regarding the potential health risks of abortion. The Law of Life Project and ADF's friend of the court brief, filed on behalf of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, The Catholic Medical Association, and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, examines the scientific information and state law disclosure requirements surrounding the links between abortion and future mental and physical health problems and demonstrates that not only are the PRCs' practices in providing such information fully justified by existing scientific evidence, but many other states actually require abortion providers to disclose the same information about the potential health risks that the abortion industry seeks to hide.
JUBILEE CAMPAIGN'S LAW OF LIFE PROJECT IS A PUBLIC INTEREST LEGAL ORGANIZATION DEDICATED TO LEGALLY DEFENDING THE RIGHT TO LIFE AND DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN BEING FROM BIOLOGICAL CONCEPTION UNTIL NATURAL DEATH IN ALL MATTERS WORLDWIDE WHERE SUCH A DEFENSE IS REQUIRED. JUBILEE CAMPAIGN IS AN INTERNATIONAL CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION THAT SEEKS TO BE A "VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS" PROMOTING THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF ALL, PARTICULARLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN COUNTRIES WHICH IMPRISON, TERRORIZE OR OTHERWISE OPPRESS THEM.
