Vandal sues pro-life pregnancy center for 'medical malpractice' after defacing clinic
The woman charged with vandalizing a pro-life pregnancy center has filed a lawsuit accusing the clinic of "medical malpractice" as she denies violating federal law in connection with the defacement of the property.
CompassCare, a network of crisis pregnancy centers located in upstate New York, announced last Wednesday that it's facing a medical malpractice lawsuit filed on Dec. 18 by Hannah Kamke.
Kamke was arrested earlier this year for spray-painting the word "LIARS" on the sign of CompassCare's Amherst location on March 16. She pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was ordered to pay $2,580 in restitution in connection with the incident.
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The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, responds to the allegations laid out in CompassCare's October lawsuit against Kamke, maintaining that she vandalized the pro-life pregnancy center in violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
CompassCare filed the complaint against Kamke after the U.S. Department of Justice failed to bring charges against her for violating the FACE Act.
The FACE Act declares it "unlawful for a person to use force, the threat of force, or physical obstruction to intentionally injure or intimidate a person because he or she is or has been obtaining or providing [an abortion]."
While most of Kamke's complaint acts as a counterclaim to CompassCare's lawsuit against the pro-abortion activist and denies that she violated federal law by vandalizing it, the document also includes allegations of medical malpractice against the pro-life pregnancy center.
After echoing Democrats' claims that pro-life pregnancy centers like CompassCare engage in deceptive business practices and seek to mislead women seeking abortions, the complaint details Kamke's experience as a client there. Specifically, it detailed how Kamke had thought she had become pregnant and wanted to undergo an ultrasound and receive an abortion if she was pregnant. She came across CompassCare when conducting a Google search of "abortion services in Buffalo."
According to the complaint, Kamke decided to call CompassCare. She left a message on their answering machine and received a call back from the pro-life pregnancy center, where the employee she spoke with failed to "clearly answer whether CompassCare provided or referred for abortions." Kamke went to CompassCare for an appointment a few days later.
The complaint maintains that when going through paperwork in the waiting room, Kamke discovered that "CompassCare does not perform or refer for abortion." After taking a pregnancy test and inquiring about pamphlets outlining "abortion pill reversal and the prevalence of sexually transmitted disease" in the U.S., a nurse told her that "individuals who obtained abortions were more likely to be sexually promiscuous and, therefore, more likely to get STDs."
Stating that the nurse's "comment made Ms. Kamke feel stigmatized and shamed," the document also indicated Kamke's displeasure with comments the nurse allegedly made, insisting that "God needs every child to be born" and "it was God saying it was her time to be a mother, which was what [Ms. Kamke] was put on this Earth to do." The complaint slammed the nurse's alleged request to pray with Kamke as "proselytizing" and condemned her "intrusive questions" about her religious beliefs.
While initially determining that the pregnancy test was negative as well as transvaginal ultrasound, the lawsuit accuses a CompassCare employee of allegedly asserting that a "miracle" had "turned Ms. Kamke's negative pregnancy test positive, and now Ms. Kamke was pregnant." This prompted Kamke to leave CompassCare. She ultimately discovered that she was not pregnant.
The complaint defended Kamke's vandalism of CompassCare as "based solely on her own personal experience as a care-seeker at CompassCare, which caused her anger, frustration, and emotional trauma."
"What made CompassCare 'liars' in her view was that its employees had told her she was pregnant through a 'miracle' when she was not and that in every step of her interactions with CompassCare, CompassCare had misled her about the nature of the organization and the services it provided. Ms. Kamke felt violated and betrayed by CompassCare and its employees to whom she had gone for unbiased assistance in a vulnerable time in her life."
The lawsuit contends that CompassCare violated New York Business Law by engaging in deceptive business practices and false advertising in addition to fraudulent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, negligent misrepresentation, negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress and medical malpractice. It asks a federal judge to award compensatory and punitive damages to Kamke, attorneys' fees and litigation costs while seeking dismissal of CompassCare's lawsuit against her.
CompassCare's CEO, the Rev. Jim Harden, called the allegation of medical malpractice "outlandish and totally outside CompassCare's strict protocols and procedures."
Harden challenged "Kamke and her lawyers to sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury that her statements are true," suggesting that "the only reason lawyers would draft a 55-page lawsuit that reads like a 'C-' college Freshman/GPT essay is if they have been given assurances that the blue state in which they reside will not disbar them."
"I look forward to trying this case in the court of public opinion," Harden added. "How could it be that Kamke's attorneys are so politically pitch-perfect when it comes to the pro-abortion allegations leveled against pro-life pregnancy centers? It would appear as if pro-abortion politicians and attorneys are using attacks on pro-life groups in an effort to undermine the rule of law."
In another act of vandalism, a CompassCare clinic near Buffalo was firebombed in June 2022.
Harden and CompassCare have long alleged that the federal and New York state governments have stalled on bringing charges against those responsible for pro-abortion violence because they share the political beliefs of the perpetrators.
In a previous interview with The Christian Post, Harden said, "We have right now a federal law enforcement system that is treating the law like a legal buffet, picking and choosing which ones to enforce and against those who are politically disfavored."
CompassCare and many other pro-life pregnancy centers have been subject to violence and vandalism after Politico published a leaked draft opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, determining that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. Kamke's defacement of CompassCare property was one of several instances of pro-abortion vandalism that took place in 2023, the first full year after the Dobbs decision.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
