Worcester Crisis Pregnancy Center Laws On Hold Over Legal Opinion

WORCESTER, MA — Worcester councilors finally took a vote on regulating anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers in the city on Tuesday night — but the vote was only to delay the issue for a little longer.

The council voted 9-2 to "table" two proposals regulating crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) as councilors wait for City Manager Eric Batista to gather an independent legal opinion on the issue. City Solicitor Michael Traynor has previously warned any law regulating CPCs would be unconstitutional, and could end in a lawsuit.

And that's partially why councilors are seeking an outside opinion. At-Large Councilor Thu Nguyen, who first raised the issue of regulating CPCs in July 2022, questioned whether Traynor's opinion was fully researched during a debate at the Sept. 12 council meeting. That led to an order asking Batista to seek two outside opinions.

At Tuesday's meeting, Batista reported he researched two outside organizations that could do the work, but was only in contact with one of them to write an opinion.

District 1 Councilor Sean Rose moved to "table" the CPC ordinances until the new legal opinion could be brought to the full council. Nguyen said they would want the ordinances to go to the Municipal Operations Committee for a discussion, but would wait for it to be discussed there until Batista could return the new legal opinion.

Mayor Joseph Petty Jr. said the council could not actually vote to send the ordinances to any committee since the ordinances were before the council to either vote up or down. Petty suggested moving the items to the Oct. 8 meeting for an approval vote, giving Batista enough time to get the legal opinion.

The CPC issue has been one of the most agonizing topics for councilors this year. After councilors voted in July 2022 to ask Batista to propose a law regulating CPCs, Batista and Traynor delayed any action, and didn't intend on acting on the council vote, according to internal emails.

Batista and Traynor then reversed and agreed to send proposals after a confrontation at a council meeting in July with Nguyen. Those two proposals have been stalled several times — first when they were held by At-Large Councilor Donna Colorio at the Aug. 22 meeting, and then during a lengthy discussion at the Sept. 12 meeting.

There are two crisis pregnancy centers in Worcester: Clearway Clinic, which has been sued by a woman who claims a nurse at the clinic misled her about the viability of an ectopic pregnancy that later required surgery; and Problem Pregnancy, which is located across the street from the Planned Parenthood clinic along Pleasant Street.

The Wakefield-based group the Massachusetts Family Institute, which opposes abortion, sent a letter to Worcester officials earlier this summer threatening to sue if they adopted the CPC ordinances.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the vote count to "table" the CPC issue.