Jean Marie Davis believes that she and her young son would be dead if it wasn’t for the pro-life pregnancy center she visited while she was attempting to escape from the world of human trafficking about a decade ago.
She was homeless, pregnant, and afraid, she said. She didn’t want to have a baby. A worker at the safe house where she was told her about the New Hampshire–based pregnancy center.
“When I got there, a woman named Phyllis, she shared Jesus with me, and she told me that she can help me in the situation I was in,” Davis recalled. She received an ultrasound and heard her unborn son’s heartbeat for the first time. “That’s when I decided to keep my child,” she said.
Eventually, Davis went back to school, earned a theology degree, and is now the executive director of Branches Pregnancy Resource Center in Brattleboro, Vt.
Branches offers parenting classes and motherhood and fatherhood programs, Davis said. They help people get help for addiction. They provide women and babies with clothes, diapers, and formula. And they have protocols to help people who are being trafficked.
But Davis and others are worried that a new Vermont law will limit the services that pro-life pregnancy centers like Branches can provide and shut down their ability to communicate with clients on critical topics, including abortion-pill-reversal options. Davis said she believes the Democratic lawmakers behind Senate Bill 37, which was signed in May by the state’s socially liberal Republican governor Phil Scott, want to shutter pro-life centers like hers “because of the fact that we don’t support the state’s extreme pro-abortion agenda.”
On Tuesday, the conservative legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit against Vermont state officials claiming that the new law specifically targets pro-life pregnancy centers, unconstitutionally restricts their speech, and limits who can provide services. ADF is representing the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, or NIFLA, a religious nonprofit, as well as two faith-based pregnancy centers in Vermont, Branches and Aspire Now.
The offices of Scott and Democratic attorney general Charity Clark did not respond to a request for comment from National Review. S. Lauren Hibbert, the deputy secretary of state, said in an email that her office had no comment on the pending litigation.
Senate Bill 37 is one of two “shield bills” passed by the Vermont legislature this year broadly intended to protect doctors, health-care professionals, and insurance providers from malpractice claims for being involved in providing gender-affirming care and abortions. But a section of the legislation also specifically addresses so-called limited-services pregnancy centers — pro-life pregnancy centers — that don’t provide abortions or refer people to abortion providers. The law singles out those pro-life centers for restrictions on how they can advertise their services and on who is allowed to perform services, and it identifies their services as “acts of commerce,” even though Branches and Aspire Now do not charge clients for their services.
“The law specifically applies only to centers that do not provide or refer for abortions, so that’s specifically pro-life pregnancy centers,” said Julia Payne, an ADF lawyer. “That is viewpoint discrimination, which is prohibited under the First Amendment.”
Senate Bill 37 accuses some pro-life centers of providing “confusing and misleading information to pregnant individuals contemplating abortion by leading those individuals to believe that their facilities offer abortion services and unbiased counseling.” The law prohibits pro-life centers from making advertising claims that are “untrue or clearly designed to mislead the public about the nature of the services provided.” The centers could be fined up to $10,000 per violation.
One problem, according to Payne, is that the law is too vague, and it is not clear about what is considered “misleading.”
Clicking on the Branches website, visitors see messages such as, “Wondering if you are pregnant? We are here to answer your questions about your pregnancy and your options,” and “Is she pregnant? We can help you make the best choice — together.” Would those types of messages be considered misleading, even though Branches has a disclaimer at the bottom of its website stating that it does not offer abortion services or referrals? It’s not clear, Payne said.
Payne said that while both Branches and Aspire Now “engage in accurate and true advertising,” if they “advertise their services in a way that Vermont’s pro-abortion attorney general considers misleading, then the center could face fines of up to $10,000.”
“One of the witnesses at the legislative hearings on this law suggested that something as small as naming a pregnancy center, like, the ‘Women’s Health Center’ or the ‘Women’s Center’ might be misleading to women, because it might lead them to believe that that center provides abortions,” Payne added.
The law also prohibits pro-life centers from providing “or claiming to provide services or medications that are purported to reverse the effects of a medication abortion.” Because of that, Davis said, she’s had to stop providing clients with information cards about abortion-pill reversal — a sustained regimen of progesterone to support the unborn baby — and a telephone number for an abortion-pill-reversal hot line.
“That right there makes it hard for us, because if a woman wants to keep her child, we can’t offer or give her that information to let her know that, hey, there’s this option,” Davis said.
The lawsuit is also challenging a portion of the law that requires that certified, registered, or licensed health-care providers “be responsible for conducting and providing health care services, information, and counseling at the center.” Pro-life centers found in violation of the law could face fines of up to $5,000 per violation.
But Branches is not yet a medical clinic — it doesn’t provide ultrasounds, sonograms, or any prenatal care — and it doesn’t employ any licensed medical providers. Payne said it is not clear if Branches could be fined if unlicensed staffers provided women with over-the-counter pregnancy tests or talked with them about their options.
“That’s a big part of their services,” Payne said. “This is not informed consent for a medical procedure. This is someone sitting down and talking with a peer about their decision.”
Davis said fines attached to the law are concerning. “I’m not a big center. I’m a very small center. So, too many fines can end up with us being closed,” she said.
Payne also believes the intent of the law is to ultimately shutter pro-life pregnancy centers in Vermont. “That is revealed through the fact that the law targets pro-life pregnancy centers on the basis of their viewpoint,” she said. “If Vermont simply wanted all women to receive accurate information, it would include all centers or health-care clinics, regardless of viewpoint, including abortion clinics.”
Davis said they do not have an agenda at Branches other than to support women, men, and children who need their help, and to share their belief in Jesus. If a law like this had been in effect in New Hampshire when Davis was in need, and if it had led the pregnancy center she visited to close, “then I would not be here, my child would not be here,” Davis said.
“That,” she said, “is not right for the government to do that.”