On July 5, the Easthampton City Council passed an ordinance to increase “safe and fair access to legally protected reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare services.” On July 6, Mayor Nicole LaChapelle vetoed it — the first time she has used her veto power.

The ordinance does two simple but important things in this time of extreme threats to the health and rights of pregnant women and LGBTQ people.

First, its “safe access” provision applies our state shield law locally, detailing how Easthampton employees and contractors must protect individuals seeking or providing reproductive or gender-affirming care from sharing their information with third parties, and from arrest or incarceration for seeking that care.

Second, its “fair access” provision commits the city to educating community members about legally protected health services, information and advisories in Massachusetts, and to assisting individuals concerned about an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center (CPC) experience to file a complaint with the state attorney general.

Our state and regional health care providers and advocates urged passage of this ordinance. Reproductive Equity Now is promoting it as a model for local governments statewide.

Yet Mayor LaChapelle rushed to veto it. She told the news media she was concerned about the city’s role regarding state laws or information. But our Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, who as mayor of Salem approved both a local shield law and a regulation addressing crisis pregnancy centers,, has publicly urged municipalities statewide to also pass such policies, conduct public education about where to find legitimate abortion providers, and collaborate with the Healey-Driscoll administration as part of a “coordinated, all-branches-of-government response.”

Then in her veto letter, LaChapelle said her concern was legal challenges threatened by “well-funded organizations intent on limiting the rights of women and the LGBTQIA+ community.” But the city solicitor found the ordinance is legally sound. And reproductive rights lawyers have committed to defending it against any legal challenge, at no cost to the city.

We do not live in a safe bubble in western Massachusetts. State policymaking is not enough in the dire post-Roe reality.

Massachusetts is now an abortion sanctuary with patients flooding here from other states. What was a constitutional right a year ago is now a crime in those states, and trans youth are under attack. Right-wing zealots want to go after people traveling for and providing care here. The “safe access” ordinance protects residents against out-of-state prosecution by explicitly applying the state shield law to Easthampton operations.

Moreover, while the state strengthens our rights, people on the ground are navigating against massive disinformation. Researchers studying the post-Roe landscape are calling it an “infodemic,” with discussion around reproductive care so filled with misinformation that people are struggling to find accurate information and legitimate care.

Easthampton’s “fair access” provision empowers residents with critical community-based education in this treacherous landscape.

Crisis pregnancy centers, which outnumber abortion clinics in western Mass by 5-1, play a central role in this “infodemic.” They systematically use deceptive advertising and medical disinformation to intercept pregnant people seeking health care. They brand themselves as local “clinics” or “pregnancy centers” but are part of a network of state, national and global anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ advocacy groups.

They are using extensive digital strategies to sow confusion and obstruct access to health care online, post-Roe, especially in abortion destination states like ours.

That means, if you Google “abortion near me” in Easthampton, the Clearway Clinic in Springfield and Worcester will likely be atop your search. But Clearway is an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center being investigated for providing an unproven “abortion pill reversal” treatment, and was sued over using deceptive advertising and allegedly performing an ultrasound that missed a woman’s ectopic pregnancy, leaving her to suffer massive internal bleeding and emergency surgery.

CPCs like Clearway, which list no medical staff, claim to offer ultrasounds to “diagnose” pregnancy. But the American Institute of Ultrasound Medicine states that “diagnostic ultrasound in pregnancy should be performed only when there is a valid medical indication.” And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says ultrasounds are not standard practice during the first trimester, at the same time that it calls CPCs a danger to public health.

LaChapelle ignored all this and rolled over to extremists renowned for saber-rattling to block progressive policies, especially efforts to expose CPCs — the anti-abortion movement’s ground game — and hold them accountable for how they treat pregnant people.

LaChapelle caved to bullying by groups like “Massachusetts Family Institute” and “Massachusetts Citizens for Life,” seeking to end same-sex marriage, block sexuality education, and gaslight the public about what CPCs do; and “First Liberty Institute,” the Texas-based Christian nationalist firm backing CPC legal threats in Massachusetts and obstructing Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s efforts to discover what the CPC network HeartBeat International does with personal data it collects on pregnant people.

Shockingly, instead of using her power to protect pregnant women and LGBTQ folks in her city, Mayor LaChapelle ceded her power to these groups working to eliminate abortion rights and LGBTQ rights and impose evangelical values and traditional gender roles on us all.

Caving to bullies only makes them more aggressive. The outcome now rests on the courage and leadership of six Easthampton city councilors, to override this reckless veto.

Jenifer McKenna is co-author of “Designed to Deceive: A Study of the Crisis Pregnancy Center Industry in Nine States,” and a founding member of the Massachusetts Abortion Truth Campaign. She lives in Northampton.

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