The City of Austin is facing a lawsuit from a pregnancy resource center. The lawsuit is over a city ordinance passed in April. It requires pregnancy resource centers that don’t offer or refer women to abortion or birth control services to post notices saying that they don’t.
The city was concerned that some pregnancy centers were representing themselves as medical or therapeutic counseling centers when they were religious organizations. The lawsuit from these groups claims that the city ordinance is violating their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction on the city’s ordinance.
Samuel Casey is representing the Christian faith-based non-profit organization Austin LifeCare.
“It breaks the law in many ways," Casey said. "First of all, the constitution of the United States does not permit a government to force a citizen what to say. This forces citizens what to say."
"Secondly, if you’re going to regulate speech you have to do it fairly. You can’t just pick one viewpoint to regulate and not the other,” he said.
You can hear more about the issue by listening to this interview with KUT's Mose Buchele.
http://kut.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/WEB100611.mp3
