The Baltimore City Council voted earlier today to require pregnancy clinics that do not perform abortions to post a sign that states the fact.
I am always nervous about anything that smacks of an attack on religious freedom, which can be lost in bits and dribbles rather than all at once. I would have voted against the bill because I do not like government meddling overmuch in the work that the Church and others do. But, unlike our friends at LifeSiteNews, for whom this Council vote is little short of Armageddon, I think the law never should have come up because pregnancy clinics that do not perform abortions should revel in the fact and proudly post such a notice.
There may or may not be anything to the concerns voiced by the advocates of the measure that some pregnancy clinics are slightly duplicitous in the way they present information to women, masquerading their true intentions. Certainly, pregnancy clinics should be able to distribute information about the harms abortion entails just as Planned Parenthood is free to distribute information arguing that the procedure is safe. But, I seem to remember something in the Good Book about not putting our lamp under a bushel basket.
All those who work or volunteer their time in the effort to point vulnerable women towards a life-giving choice when facing a crisis pregnancy are true heroes to the pro-life movement. They should not be afraid of advertising their work. They should only be upset that it took a vote of the City Council to make them do it.
