Colo. pregnancy center sees gains in support despite losing lawsuit against abortion activist group
A pro-life pregnancy center in Colorado that recently lost a legal battle against an abortion advocacy group says they're still seeing patients and have received increased support in the community.
The Resource Center of Greeley, a pro-life pregnancy and STD support center located near the University of Northern Colorado, filed a Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Policy complaint in February against the abortion advocacy group Truth4Greeley that set up the website domain name Truth4Greeley.com which is similar to their own, Tests4Greeley.com.
The abortion advocacy website is used to steer women away from the pregnancy center and lists a Planned Parenthood abortion facility as among the clinics it recommends.
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The website also encourages people to campaign against the Resource Center of Greeley by leaving a review on "Google, Yelp and Social Media pages to warn those who come across them looking for real support to stay away! The Resource Center is known for deleting bad reviews on their Facebook page, so make sure to check in to make sure its [sic] still there!"
Along with the domain name dispute, the pregnancy center said the abortion advocacy group was acting in bad faith against them rather than just engaging in ideological disagreement.
“The website was simply one part of the attack,” said Gail Holmes of the Resource Center of Greeley in an interview with The Christian Post on Thursday.
“The whole effort included dispersing flyers on campus and posting ‘fake clinic’ on Google reviews and other programs.”
Holmes told CP that while they “couldn't stop the flyers on campus or any picketing or the Google postings,” they had hoped that they "could do something about the website.”
“Not only did they do their best to mimic our name, but they took our branding, and rearranged some of the elements, used parts of it and then also used our branding colors. So the site looked eerily like our own web page,” she said.
But on March 30 an arbiter who settled the case concluded otherwise, deciding that shutting down the abortion advocacy website Truth 4 Greeley contradicted “a society that prides itself on allowing the free exchange of views and opinions.”
“It would be a very bold decision to deprive a party of a domain name which is being used for the dissemination of news, information and opinion and which is not otherwise contrary to the law,” read the ruling, The Colorado Sun reported on Tuesday.
Although the Resource Center of Greeley was disappointed by the decision, Holmes told CP that through the back-and-forth they received a great deal of support from UNC students and financial donors.
“Client numbers in no way decreased and neither did income. Our Gala was on March 5 and we were blessed with the largest evening offering in our history,” Holmes said.
“We didn't hide the issue but took the initiative to inform our prayer partners and our financial supporters about the attack. We were greatly blessed by the response of UNC students and partners.”
The abortion advocacy group Truth4Greeley says on its website that they believe the Resource Center of Greeley is "abusing the trust of the communities they serve," and accuses the center of not being honest about their pro-life and religious views.
"We want TRANSPARENCY in their advertising that proudly displays their religious affiliation, anti-choice agenda and limited STD testing," the group says.
