September 2023
Reproductive Justice in a Blue State, 5784
On Aug. 2, city councilors in Easthampton, in the western part of the state, voted not to pass an ordinance requiring anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) in their town to disseminate medically accurate information.
The vote would have been disappointing without context, but with context, the vote has alarming implications for all of us in the Commonwealth.
A subcommittee of the City Council had worked for a year and a half to craft the ordinance. Easthampton’s council then passed the ordinance at its meeting in July. But the morning after this vote, Easthampton’s mayor Nicole LaChapelle issued a veto.
Mayor LaChapelle reasoned in her veto that the ordinance would encourage meritless lawsuits against this city of roughly 16,000. She asked why the city would spend money to defend the town against such lawsuits when the money could otherwise be used to support women. She also reasoned that Easthampton, which she described as a values-driven community, was already doing the right thing.
In response, Atty. Stephanie Toti, senior counsel and project direct at The Lawyering Project offered the town pro bono representation should anti-abortion groups bring suit.
Additionally, 17 groups, including NCJW MA, issued a statement advocating for reproductive and trans rights and asked councilors to override Mayor LaChapelle’s veto.
But by the Aug. 2 meeting, three male councilors had decided to uphold the mayor’s override. There weren’t enough votes to reinstate the ordinance.
Like most every other municipality around the state, Easthampton will have no measure to ensure safe and fair access to the reproductive and gender-affirming health care supposedly guaranteed in Massachusetts.
The moral of this story for NCJW MA activists is not to assume that we can rest easy when it comes to abortion or trans rights in the Commonwealth. It’s true that Massachusetts is a reliably “blue” state. It is also true that all who represent us in Congress are members of the Democratic Party. Democrats hold an overwhelming majority in the State House, where progressive legislators are working to enact broader protections for pregnant and trans people. But legislation regulating CPCs has not yet passed at the state or federal level, leaving cities and towns on their own.
CPCs continue to operate in our state and communities with impunity. They advertise themselves as offering free medical advice, but their only mission is to counsel pregnant people against abortion. They collect personal data, which they put into national databases. They are funded by wealthy, international evangelical organizations, some of which are setting up “homes” intended to place newborns only with evangelical Christian families.
We might imagine an al chet for CPCs, with a long list of sins for which they need to repent this Yom Kippur. The list might include the sins of improper speech, deception, insincerity of confession, coercion, foolish talk, evil inclination, false denial and lying, impudence, scheming, and tale-bearing.
What about us? Unless we get involved, we will have to add a line to our recitation of the al chet for the sin of doing nothing to ensure the safety of the most vulnerable among us.
As we hear the call of the shofar in 5784, we need to act to put CPCs on notice. Pledge to make phone calls, send emails, write postcards, attend council and selectboard meetings, and show up for information sessions in the coming year.
Tzedek, tzedek tirdof: justice, justice shall you pursue.