RALEIGH, North Carolina, August 22, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — A pro-life pregnancy resource center is suing the city of Raleigh for refusing to let it work out of its own building, which is located next to an abortion facility.
In July, the Raleigh city council unanimously rejected Hand of Hope Pregnancy Resource Center’s zoning request to begin operations at its Jones Franklin Road location. This week, the pregnancy resource center filed a federal lawsuit against the city.
Before the city council prohibited the center from operating, the Citizen Advisory Council and Planning Commission had approved Hand of Hope’s plans. The city is scheduled to eventually rezone the property in a way that will be consistent with Hand of Hope’s needs, but the City Council claims that doing so now would be “premature.”
Hand of Hope is next door to Preferred Women’s Health, which is part of a network of abortion facilities in North Carolina and Georgia.
“Pregnant women in Raleigh should be allowed to choose Hand of Hope’s free help and support and should not be limited to an abortion clinic. Those who go to Preferred Women’s Health will not be fully informed about their choices,” Tonya Baker Nelson, executive director of Hand of Hope, said in a statement.
John Mauck, a partner at Mauck & Baker, the law firm representing Hand of Hope, told LifeSiteNews that “the facts are simple.”
“Our client bought a property right next to an abortion clinic,” Mauck explained. “They [want to] use it as a pregnancy counseling center to help women understand their alternatives to abortion. The city … refused to let them operate the pregnancy center there. They said it [wasn’t] in conformity with the zoning.”
Mauck said the goal of this lawsuit is to obtain a court order saying Hand of Hope can use their property notwithstanding the city’s “political” zoning restrictions.
“Having a place of hope” next door to an abortion center gives women “an opportunity to learn more,” Mauck said. “The liberals and pro-abortion folks have been sounding this choice, choice, choice mantra,” but there’s hypocrisy about it. “When it comes down to if you want women to have choices, [then] let them learn about abortion and learn about adoption and learn about all the other alternatives. … There’s a lot of hypocrisy.”