By Dave Andrusko

Every so often one of our kind readers will ask why I return to a particular story more than, say, twice. The answer for some subjects is self-evident. We wrote about ObamaCare a hundred times both because of its intrinsic importance and because we needed you to correspond with your senators and congressman or congresswomen.

Other times the reason I write often is because of the larger issue it represents. That's why the Baltimore City Council's vendetta against area women-helping centers keeps coming up on my radar.

Many of you will remember the latest phase of the battle that began last year. A little over a week ago the Archdiocese of Baltimore filed a suit in

U. S. District Court, challenging a city law that requires pro-life pregnancy centers to post signs saying they do not provide abortions.

As you would expect, PPFA's fingerprints were all over this. The impetus for the action by the City Council was Planned Parenthood of Maryland, according to the Sun. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, then city council president, now the mayor, sponsored the measure, which was approved last November on a 12-3 vote and took effect in January.

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien

At a March 29 press conference Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien said the measure "is a clear violation of these centers constitutional rights to free speech, and their free exercise of religion." He told WJZ television "I have never heard of a private institution, groups being told that they must advertise what they don't do under financial penalty. I think it's discriminatory."

Further, he noted, the law "runs directly runs counter to Maryland's conscience clause, which protects the rights of Maryland's citizens to refuse to provide or refer for abortions." Indeed, that refusal "is based on their moral and religious beliefs that these centers do not provide or refer for abortions."

Today the Baltimore Sun editorialized on the topic, rubberstamping the "need" for the requirement but agreeing the women-helping centers had a point: why aren't abortion clinics required to post a sign saying what THEY don't provide? Such a requirement was brought up but rejected by the Baltimore City Council.

Real quickly, here are the larger issues at play here.

1. As noted above, what is sauce for the pro-life goose is not sauce for the pro-abortion gander. The irony is that there have a been a number of investigations of abortion clinics where--to be charitable--personnel did not take their obligation to report suspected cases of statutory rape seriously.

2. There is no evidence that Baltimore's Center for Pregnancy Concerns has misled its clients in any way. Its director, Carol A. Clews, flatly denies it and understandably is angry.

"We have many of our clients fill out evaluations after they've been helped," she said at that press conference, according to the Sun. "We do not now or have we ever had complaints from clients about being misled in any way or problems with the services they've received." Clews added, "'We make our position abundantly clear. Pregnancy centers don't do abortions. They offer women assistance," she said.

3. In the Sun editorial, we're told, "it is reasonable for the government to ensure that no potential for misunderstanding exists about the nature of so crucial a service." But elsewhere in the editorial you read the source for that conclusion: "Abortion rights groups convinced the City Council to enact this law by testifying that they had sent undercover young women to centers like these and found that they were given inaccurate information about abortion."

I was not at the council hearings but nine chances out of ten the "inaccurate information" is (1) that an induced abortion increases the chances of a woman contracting breast cancer; (2) that aborted women are more susceptible to a variety of psycho-social conditions; and (3) that abortion can and does increase the incidence of future infertility and miscarriages (to name just two).

But the truth of these complications is supported by an impressive area of peer-reviewed articles in reputable journals. Just because some federal agency is in the pockets of the abortion industry doesn't change the truth that abortion kills unborn babies, hurts their mothers in numerous physical and inter-personal ways , and can be threatening to subsequent pregnancies. (See http://www.nrlc.org/Factsheets/FSPsychConseqRefs.pdf and http://www.nrlc.org/Factsheets/FShurtswomenrRefs.pdf)

4. What you never, ever read is that the Abortion Industry attacks women-helping centers six days a week and twice on Sunday. In most instances the women-helping centers operate on a shoe-string budget while the pro-abortion groups have deep pockets.

We'll keep you up to speed on the lawsuit. Let's hope for once the bullies get their comeuppance.

Please be sure to read the latest at www.nationalrighttolifenews.org.  Send your thoughts and comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com

Part Four
Part One
Part Two