When Jean Marie Davis, a victim of sex trafficking, made her harrowing escape, she was turned away by dozens of shelters that found her situation too severe to offer her refuge.
Pregnant, with barely a dollar to her name, she eventually found safety at a shelter in New Hampshire. But it is a nearby pregnancy center that she credits with saving her life.
“When I came to New Hampshire, [the shelter] looked at me, and they told me about the pregnancy center in the area, and that they were Christians, and that they were pro-life,” Ms. Davis told The Epoch Times.
“I said I didn’t care, I just needed help. And that’s kind of how my life started on this new journey.”
But that mission has become more challenging in recent months because of a new state law she says unfairly restricts the ways in which centers like hers can advertise and operate.
A New Life
Ms. Davis knows firsthand what it feels like to be a woman in crisis.Trafficked across 33 states, from age 2 to 29, she suffered unspeakable abuse—including rape and even murder attempts. She fell deep into drug addiction and severe depression, which led her to attempt to take her own life via overdose.
For many women in that situation, an unplanned pregnancy can be devastating and even perilous. But, Ms. Davis says, it was her baby boy who ultimately saved her.
When she told her pimp that she was pregnant and she wanted out, he threatened to shoot her, forcing her to flee for her life.
“At that time, I was abortion-minded,” she noted. “When I came in [to the pregnancy center], I just knew that I didn’t want my child to go through the same things that I went through—being trafficked for so many years and the horrific things that I had to experience in my life and deal with.
“But when I heard the heartbeat of my son, I knew that there was a time that I needed to change, and I needed to live a better life than what I was living. So, at the end of the day, like I tell my son all the time, he saved me.”
It was at the same New Hampshire pregnancy center that Ms. Davis met Phyllis, a Christian woman who inspired her to also make a spiritual change.
“I didn’t really know what Christianity was,” she recalled. “But when I looked at the woman, and when she asked me, ‘How can I help you,’ I’ll never forget. I just looked at her and said, ‘I want what you have, whatever that may be.’”
Ms. Davis became a Christian that day, and with Phyllis’s help, she began to build a new life.
Senate Bill 37
In just eight years, Ms. Davis had gone from being a client in a pro-life pregnancy center to directing one. Now, she aims to offer other women in need the same level of support she received when she was in their shoes.One of the services Ms. Davis’s center offers is a human trafficking program to support victims looking for a way out. As part of those efforts, the center is currently working with the local school district to educate students about sex trafficking.
Other services provided by Branches include pregnancy tests, medical referrals, maternity and infant supplies, parenting classes and programs, adoption agency referrals, a post-abortion support group, and other related information.
But the absence of abortion or abortion referrals on that list is what has made the center’s work more difficult in recent months.
Since the enactment of Vermont’s Senate Bill 37 in May, Branches and other pro-life pregnancy centers have been restricted in how they promote their services to potential clients.
Under the new law’s provisions, pregnancy centers that do not perform or refer clients for abortions are prohibited from advertising their services in a way that is “clearly designed to mislead the public” about the services they provide. The law also requires that licensed health care providers be responsible for providing all health care services, information, and counseling at such facilities.
Proponents of the new law claimed that pro-life pregnancy centers use deceptive advertising to lure women seeking abortions to their facilities so that they can dissuade them from choosing that path.
“They disguise their religious and political motivations, including through giving themselves neutral-sounding names, such as The Women’s Center,” argued Carly Thomsen, an assistant professor of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies at Middlebury College during a Vermont Senate hearing on the bill in February.
Ms. Thomsen also accused pro-life pregnancy centers of performing “insidious work to spread anti-abortion ideology,” including sharing false medical information about abortion and choosing locations near abortion clinics “with the intention of confusing and thus hijacking those en route to clinics.”
But Ms. Davis says she is not engaging in any underhanded scheme.
“I’ve just been a director for almost a year now, and what I’ve heard over there is that we’re pushing some agenda or pushing who we are on people,” she said. “And, as I’ve told everybody, our motto here is, ‘We do life with each other.’ So, we’re here to help you.
“Yes, we believe in Jesus. Yes, we’re pro-life. But we’re here to help.”
On its website, Branches includes a disclaimer stating that the center does not offer or refer for pregnancy terminations or birth control and that the information provided “should not be relied on as a substitute for professional and/or medical advice.”
While required under the new law, that disclaimer is only one of the boxes pro-life pregnancy centers must check to remain in compliance with the law’s advertisement provisions.
But the law does not explicitly state what information would be considered misleading—a fact that could easily be exploited by a politically-motivated attorney general, according to attorney Julia Payne of Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Life.
“If pregnancy centers advertise their services in a way that Vermont’s pro-abortion attorney general considers misleading, then those centers could face fines up to $10,000,” Ms. Payne noted.
Additionally, she said the law’s focus on pro-life pregnancy centers presents a constitutional violation.
“The law explicitly targets pro-life pregnancy centers. It’s only those pregnancy centers that do not provide or refer for abortion. And that’s viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment, which is very clearly prohibited.”
Litigation
In a complaint filed July 25 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, Branches, Aspire Now, and the nonprofit National Institute of Family and Life Advocates challenge Vermont state officials over the law’s constitutionality.Specifically, in addition to the advertising restrictions, the complaint objects to the law’s requirement that all services, information, and counseling be provided by a licensed health care provider.
The complaint also emphasizes that the same standard is not equally applied to abortion clinics.
“Planned Parenthood of Northern New England’s Vice President of Vermont Public Affairs, Ms. Lucy Leriche, testified that even Planned Parenthood staff that provide ultrasounds need only be ‘privileged’ by their local Planned Parenthood. … In other words, these staff members need not be licensed medical providers.”
Ms. Payne, who serves as legal counsel for the pregnancy centers in their lawsuit, said the law poses an open-and-shut case of unconstitutional discrimination.
“Vermont’s law explicitly targets pro-life pregnancy centers that offer free services to women who need them,” she said. “And those pregnancy centers should be free to serve their clients without unjust government punishment.”
Vermont’s Democratic Attorney General Charity Clark has yet to file a response in court.
Her office did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
