A pro-life church that regularly prays outside abortion facilities has been ordered to pay the Planned Parenthood abortion chain $110,000 in a lawsuit.
The Tribune reports the Spokane County Superior Court ordered the Church at Planned Parenthood to pay the amount Friday for allegedly “interfering” with patients’ “access to health care” outside an abortion facility in Spokane, Washington.
Last year, Judge Timothy B. Fennessy prohibited the church from holding services within 35 feet of the abortion facility, The Spokesman-Review reported at the time. His order also banned the Church at Planned Parenthood from holding services between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. while patients still are inside the building.
On Friday, Fennessy said the church violated state law and must pay the amount to Planned Parenthood as penalties for its actions, according to the report.
“Reasonable minds can only reach one conclusion, that [the Church at Planned Parenthood] intends to interfere with access to or safe and effective delivery of health care services provided by” Planned Parenthood, the judge wrote in 2021.
It is not clear if the church leaders intend to appeal the ruling.
Planned Parenthood and Legal Voice filed a lawsuit against the church in 2020. They claimed the pro-life Christians are bullying patients and staff and interfering with Planned Parenthood’s work.
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They also claimed the pro-life ministry has been “interfering with patients’ access to healthcare,” because patients sometimes can hear pro-lifers from inside the building.
However, leaders of The Church at Planned Parenthood say they are not protesters. Their purpose is to worship God and pray for repentance “of our blood guiltiness in this abortion holocaust.”
City police said they have not had problems with the pro-life church, the Spokesman Review reported in 2020. Pro-life sidewalk counselors, pro-life protests and other outreaches are overwhelmingly peaceful, and Church at Planned Parenthood leaders said they conduct their worship services after Planned Parenthood closes for the evening.
“I think the ruling is unconstitutional,” Ken Peters, founder and director of the pro-life ministry, told the local news last year.
The Church at Planned Parenthood describes itself as a “gathering of Christians for the worship of God and corporate prayer for repentance for this nation, repentance for the apathetic church, and repentance for our blood guiltiness in this abortion holocaust,” according to its website.
Since the church formed in 2018, abortion activists have been trying to restrict its life-saving work. In 2020, the Spokane City Council voted to expand a noise ordinance outside abortion facilities and health care facilities in the city. Pro-life leaders believe the vote directly targeted pro-life sidewalk counselors and the Church at Planned Parenthood.
Recently, the ministry also began holding services outside abortion facilities in other states, including Tennessee and Georgia.
In an interview with Prayer Link, a CBN talk show, Peters said he staunchly believes that the pro-life movement will succeed in the battle to protect the defenseless.
“The Bible says that hell will not prevail against the church, but I think if the church does not engage, then hell has free reign. So, what we’re doing is taking church right to the gates of hell knowing that we will win,” he said.
