We settled but we are not settling.

After almost three years, Caring Families' lawsuit against the City of Hartford has been resolved (at least for now).  As many of you know, the City of Hartford passed an ordinance well over two years ago, targeting the good work of pregnancy centers like ours. The Anti-Pregnancy center and Pro-Abortion group, NARAL, along with Planned Parenthood and Hartford city officials worked hard to craft an ordinance that not only violated our freedom of speech and religion, but it would also have forced our organization to post misleading and false information. The ordinance would have given the city the ability to single out and regulate the free speech in our advertisements, websites and personal conversations with our clients just because we do not provide abortions. With the support of Alliance Defending Freedom, Caring Families took the necessary steps to challenge this ordinance and protect the work and care we have been providing in the City of Hartford for women faced with an unexpected pregnancy.  Caring Families and the City of Hartford have agreed to settle the suit under the condition that Caring Families and its services are exempt from the city's ordinance. Even though the ordinance is still on the books, the city has agreed in writing to not enforce it against us. READ MORE HERE! What does this mean going forward? Caring Families is continuing to provide our Mobile Care services without having the City of Hartford violate or interfere with our freedoms and force us to speak things that are untrue! We will not have to change anything we are doing! This is definitely a win for pregnancy centers, but it is an even better win for the women of Hartford, who will continue to receive life-affirming help and hope through uncertain times.  Interestingly, the constitutional and legal challenges that were raised against the City of Hartford have not been resolved, only paused. This means if the city were to decide to try and enforce the ordinance against Caring Families or even another pregnancy center, this case would certainly be raised and challenged again! The State of Connecticut should also take note of this: if they were to, for a 5th year in a row, try and raise a bill based on this ordinance, that ADF is prepared to defend faith-based ministries like ours.  So while we settled, we are not settling. We are committed to our ongoing mission of empowering individuals to make informed decisions, by providing them all the information they need in loving and honest ways.  We are so thankful for the prayers and encouragement we've received and we do ask that you continue in prayer for the work we are doing. We are sure to face more obstacles as time goes on, but as today shows us, God is in control. Proverbs 19:21 reminds us, even though "Many are the plans in a person's heart, it is the Lord's purpose that prevails" !