Our Lady’s Inn et al. v. The City of St. Louis

The Thomas More Society handles a variety of pro bono cases involving city ordinances that infringe freedom of speech and religious liberty. In one recent example, Thomas More Society won an important legal victory organizations that support pregnant women and new mothers in St. Louis, Missouri.

Peggy Forrest of Our Lady’s Inn Maternity Homes recently shared her thoughts with us about her 2018 legal victory over the City of St. Louis. Peggy is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Our Lady’s Inn, which provides a wide variety of services to women who find themselves homeless while expecting.

“In many cases our clients have no genuine choice before they arrive at our home,” Peggy told us. “Their choice is between abortion and having a place to live, and they don’t want to choose abortion, so we have created a safe place to live. We shelter and support pregnant women and their babies.”

Our Lady’s Inn Maternity Homes offer wrap-around services that help guests with parenting, adoption, education, childcare, mental health, and legal issues.

Our Lady’s Inn has assisted over 7,000 women since they opened their doors in 1982 and has saved over 14,000 children: “Two years ago,” Peggy said, “two of the babies we saved came back to visit us. They had both graduated law school and came back to show us their diplomas.”

The Thomas More Society’s relationship with Our Lady’s Inn began in 2012, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandated that all employers, regardless of their beliefs, had to provide insurance coverage for contraception. The Thomas More Society reached out to several organizations, including Our Lady’s Inn, to offer advice about their religious liberty rights in light of the HHS mandate.

Several years later the City of St. Louis passed an ordinance requiring Our Lady’s Inn to hire employees who would advocate for abortion and to provide their housing services without considering whether prospective recipients planned to deliver their babies or abort. The new law infringed Our Lady’s Inn’s First Amendment rights to advocate for life and to associate with others in support of that cause. It would have also made Our Lady’s Inn complicit in some women’s choice of abortion, contradicting the very heart of its mission.

“It was like asking Starbucks to post a sign that reads, ‘No coffee allowed’,” Peggy said.

Violations of the ordinance were punishable by jail time as well as fines.

“I had only one choice. I could fight the ordinance in court or close down my maternity home and leave St. Louis,” Peggy said. “If we can’t employ people and provide our services in accordance with our pro-life mission, how can we possibly fulfill that mission?”

Thomas More Society stepped in and contacted Our Lady’s Inn a week after this heinous ordinance was passed and offered Our Lady’s Inn free legal representation against the city of St. Louis. Special Counsels Sarah Pitlyk and Tim Belz handled the case, which lasted 16 months until Our Lady’s Inn and its co-plaintiffs prevailed in October 2018.

“The city was shocked they didn’t win,” said Peggy. There was no appeal filed in the case, so pregnant women in St. Louis can rest assured that Our Lady’s Inn will be able to continue providing its invaluable services to the St. Louis community.

The Missouri state legislature also responded to St. Louis’s overreach by passing additional protections for organizations that provide alternatives to abortion, like Our Lady’s Inn. And thanks to the case of Our Lady’s Inn, et al. v. City of St. Louis, municipalities that consider using the pretense of anti-discrimination law to suppress pro-life advocacy in the future are now on notice that such measures violate the First Amendment, and that the Thomas More Society will vigorously defend the constitutional rights of pro-life organizations wherever they are under attack.