Pro-life protest at Planned Parenthood (Photo: Flickr/Fibonacci Blue)
The city of Minneapolis is being sued by a pro-life organization for violating the Constitution with its ban on protests at abortion businesses.
Officials with the Thomas More Society have filed the case on behalf of Pro-Life Action Ministries and several of the Christian nonprofit's staff members.
It was filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota and charges that the city code violates the free speech, expressive association and free exercise rights that are protected by the Constitution.
"The Minneapolis ordinance, Chapter 405, enacted in November 2022, was a deliberate attempt to stifle Pro-Life Action Ministries' sidewalk outreach outside of Planned Parenthood," explained Thomas More Society Special Counsel Erick Kaardal. "Minneapolis City Councilmember Lisa Goodman was the chief author of Chapter 405. Goodman made it publicly known that the enactment of Chapter 405 was a 'creative decision' while she awaits a codifying of abortion rights in Minnesota and nationwide, stating, 'Never in my 25 years of being here have I ever gotten to do something as meaningful in the reproductive rights movement.'"
Goodman also claimed, "We want the state to do something, but we want women to have access [to abortion] right now."
WND is now on Trump's Truth Social! Follow us @WNDNews
The case charges that Minneapolis crossed the constitutional line by disregarding the First Amendment.
The case seeks declaratory and injunctive relief.
Kaardal warned Goodman, noting, "Councilmember Goodman, you cannot ride roughshod over the Constitution to deny freedom of speech, expressive association, and exercise of religion, regardless of what you want."
He continued, "It’s a simple situation. The ministry of pro-life sidewalk counseling is a peaceful interaction with pregnant women to convey life-affirming alternatives to abortion. Yet the city of Minneapolis has specifically enacted an ordinance designed to prevent any success at conducting this peaceful interaction by Pro-Life Action Ministries, its staff members or volunteers, and any others involved in similar activities. And, the young pregnant woman constitutionally loses by not getting the information she may want."
The legal team explained the offending part the city code "prohibits disrupting access to reproductive healthcare facilities and occupying driveways and defines such activities in a way that makes a calm, polite invitation to converse, made from the public right of way, impossible to achieve."
Kaardal said the city's moves create an "unconstitutional, content-based exclusion zone, created exclusively for the purpose of shutting down pro-life speech outside of abortion facilities."
He also told the Daily Caller News Foundation that courts in Minnesota already have struck the state's informed consent, 24-hour waiting period and parental notice laws.
Now, he said, "the only way for many of these young, vulnerable women to get information about alternatives to abortion is the pro-life sidewalk counselors outside abortion clinics. Yet, Minneapolis’s ordinance bans such communications. Minneapolis’s ordinance is a misogynistic and cruel suppression of free speech."
EDITOR’S NOTE: Question: Why do the political and corporate leaders of America – long the freest, most successful, most prosperous and most Christian nation in history – bow and scrape before China, a ruthless, communist, totalitarian and explicitly atheistic dictatorship openly committed to ruling the world, including America?
The astonishing answers come into focus only when one contemplates both the unprecedented level of political and financial corruption in America’s ruling class (multiple Biden family members received $31 million in payola from China), and simultaneously the communist Chinese government’s brilliantly devious methods of unconventional total warfare, by which China is stealthily infiltrating, subverting, corrupting and colonizing the United States of America.
The China threat has rarely been more dramatically or pointedly documented than in the sensational March issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled “HOW CHINA IS CONQUERING AMERICA.” Whistleblower is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.
For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!
Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.
The post Minneapolis sued for violating 1st Amendment with protest ban appeared first on WND.
