Suit was filed in a Connecticut federal district court yesterday challenging the constitutionality of a Hartford (CT) Ordinance that requires pregnancy resource centers to make required disclosures on signs, websites and when patients make appointments. Facilities must make the disclosures if they do not have licensed medical providers on the premises to directly supervise all services. The complaint (full text) in Caring Families Pregnancy Services, Inc. v. City of Hartford, (D CT. filed 4/18/2019), alleges that the Ordinance is drafted to cover only pro-life pregnancy resource centers, and requires statements that incorrectly imply that the facilities are not qualified to provide the services they offer. The complaint contends:
The practical result of enforcing the Ordinance’s Compelled Speech provision would be not only to inhibit a religious ministry from furthering its mission and message but also to force religious speakers to speak messages with misleading, confusing and negative implications….
Hartford is intent on interfering with certain views about life, pregnancy, and motherhood. Hartford has thus crafted a speaker-based, viewpoint-based law targeting the speech only of speakers espousing certain pro-life moral, religious, and philosophical beliefs.
ADF issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.