Several Massachusetts Crisis Pregnancy Centers Call On Maura Healey To Stop Targeting Them and Start Protecting Them

By Matt McDonald | September 13, 2022, 19:01 EDT

Maura Healey, Massachusetts attorney general. State House News Service file photo by Sam Doran.

A coalition of crisis pregnancy centers in Massachusetts is calling on the state’s attorney general to take action to protect them from property attacks and to withdraw a consumer advisory she issued against them earlier this summer.

“As the chief law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth, she’s responsible for working to prevent violence against abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers alike. She can’t pick and choose whom she’s going to protect just because she disagrees with them,” said Andrew Beckwith, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, in a telephone interview with New Boston Post on Tuesday. “She’s supposed to enforce the law, not her personal or political agenda.”

The Massachusetts Family Institute is representing the coalition, which includes about five of the estimated 30 crisis pregnancy centers in the state. Also representing the coalition is First Liberty Institute, a public-interest law firm in Plano, Texas that takes religious-freedom cases.

A spokesman for Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, could not immediately be reached for comment late Tuesday afternoon.

Healey, a Democrat, is running for governor of Massachusetts as the party’s nominee. She is a vocal supporter of legal abortion.

She is also a critic of crisis pregnancy centers, which seek to persuade women with problem pregnancies not to have an abortion. Such centers typically provide diapers, wipes, blankets, and formula. Some also offer ultrasounds. Some are licensed medical facilities with professional nurses and a doctor overseeing them, though most are not.

Healey’s office issued what it called a “warning” about crisis pregnancy centers on July 6, noting that crisis pregnancy centers do not provide abortion or contraception and stating that they “often provide inaccurate and misleading information about abortion and the medical and mental health effects of abortion.” The warning also states that crisis pregnancy centers “often try to delay scheduling appointments” for abortion.

About 15 hours later, on July 7, two pregnancy centers in Worcester were hit with overnight graffiti and broken glass.

On August 18, a crisis pregnancy center in Easthampton was attacked overnight.

Several dozen have been attacked nationwide. CatholicVote.org has published a list of 67 crisis pregnancy centers that have been attacked since the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked May 2. Most have sustained property damage from graffiti and broken glass, although a handful of cases included arson.

As for Massachusetts, lawyers for the coalition of crisis pregnancy centers sent the state attorney general’s office a letter on Monday, September 12 defending the centers and criticizing Healey’s actions.

“We remind you that, as an officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you have a duty to all citizens of Massachusetts, including those with whom you may politically disagree as they knit baby blankets and distribute baby food,” the letter states.

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