Under legal pressure, officials in Hagerstown, Maryland, backed away from a local policy aimed to combat the CCP virus by preventing religious pro-life activists from praying on a public sidewalk outside an abortion clinic.
The development comes as several states have relaxed containment measures targeting the expression of religious beliefs and a handful of others are preparing to scale back stay-at-home orders. It also comes as states such as Michigan, which on April 14 dropped charges against pro-life sidewalk counselors, are backing away from limiting pro-life activists’ free speech rights outside abortion clinics as part of an effort to prevent the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus and which causes the disease COVID-19.
