Plaintiffs in the federal suit are seeking an immediate injunction against enforcement of the ordinance and its eventual invalidation as unconstitutional. Archbishop Robert Carlson vowed that the archdiocese won’t adhere to the law even if that effort fails.

“Let me be perfectly clear: The Archdiocese of St. Louis will not comply with this ordinance,” Carlson said at a news conference outside the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse downtown.

When asked how that refusal might manifest itself, he said a “flashpoint” could be “the first time you don’t hire someone” at a diocese-affiliated school or other organization due to the person’s views on abortion. He called the ordinance “a marker of our city’s embrace of the culture of death.”

Another supporter of the lawsuit, Peggy Forrest, is president of Our Lady’s Inn, a St. Louis-based nonprofit that provides support to low-income pregnant women who have chosen to carry their pregnancies to term. She argued Monday that the employment rules in the ordinance could prevent her group from ensuring that the people it hires share its anti-abortion views, undermining the very mission of the organization. “The effect ... is akin to posting a ‘no-coffee allowed’ sign at a Starbucks,” she said.