EASTHAMPTON — The City Council will hold a public hearing Wednesday on a proposed ordinance that one councilor estimates having spent more than 300 hours researching and holding discussions with reproductive and gender-affirming advocates over the last 15 months to help craft the language.

The ordinance aims to protect the privacy of individuals seeking or accessing reproductive and gender-affirming care from city employees attempting to report such activities to states that may impose civil or criminal penalties for partaking in such services, said At-Large Councilor Owen Zaret, who submitted the proposed ordinance last fall.

“Access to reproductive and gender-affirming care in many states has become very limited or restricted and criminalized,” Zaret said in a statement to the Gazette. “Massachusetts has become a sanctuary state for these services. It is important that the public has all the information they can about not only access, but also advisories about entities that may seek to derail or deceive them as they seek medical care.”

Such information may include advisories regarding so-called crisis pregnancy centers such as ones that were released last year from the state Department of Public Health and then-Attorney General Maura Healey. The state attorney general’s office says that crisis pregnancy centers do not provide comprehensive reproductive health care and are organizations that seek to prevent people from accessing abortion care.

The city will also have information on how to file a complaint with the attorney general’s office for any consumer complaints about crisis pregnancy centers or any other reproductive care services.

Wednesday’s public hearing falls on the same day one year ago that a public hearing on Zaret’s first proposed ordinance — which was designed to stop deceptive advertising practices by pregnancy centers offering limited resources — drew a fired up crowd both for and against the measure. A few months after submitting the proposed language, Zaret decided to withdraw the measure with the intention of rewriting it and resubmitting it.

Under the originally drafted ordinance, no limited services pregnancy center, with the intent to perform a pregnancy-related service, would be allowed to make or disseminate “any statement concerning any pregnancy-related service or the provision of any pregnancy-related service that is deceptive, whether by statement or omission, and that a limited services pregnancy center knows or reasonably should know to be deceptive” through public advertising via various mediums like newspapers or the internet.

The previous language, Zaret said, was focused on deceptive practices and advertising by crisis pregnancy centers and imposed a fine on those that violated the ordinance.

“This ordinance is focused on sharing information and transparency from state sources about reproductive and gender-affirming care,” Zaret said. “This new language arose from feedback in our meetings that we should focus on sharing information and allowing people to make complaints to the state versus making our own decisions regarding enforcement.”

Much like last year, groups like the Massachusetts Family Institute have already begun to rally against the city’s efforts. In an email blast sent to the Gazette from Michael King, director of the Wakefield nonprofit, he claims that the new ordinance “still disparages” pregnancy care centers by calling them “limited services pregnancy centers” and will likely use the ordinance to “spread misinformation” about them. King also itemized a list of potential talking points that could be used in letters to council members or be shared during the public hearing.

“The policy was born out of anti-PRC (pregnancy resource centers) bias and still contains language that can be used to target and disparage PRCs like Bethlehem House in Easthampton,” King wrote in the email.

He also called Zaret “unethical” for developing the ordinance with help from organizations like Planned Parenthood and Reproductive Equity Now, and called the organizations “radical pro-abortion” groups that view pregnancy resource centers as “their main competition.”

In response to King’s email, Zaret said that the aforementioned agencies work “tirelessly” to protect access to reproductive health care and felt that those entities were a fitting resource.

“Viewing any sort of health care as ‘competition’ is concerning to say the least. It would be like saying that a clinic that won’t accurately read patient’s blood pressures and refuses to provide or refer for blood pressure medications is somehow providing health care, and that providers offering accurate information and a full transparent spectrum of treatment for hypertension are ‘competing” with them,” Zaret said.

He added that crisis pregnancy centers are “inherently deceptive” in their messaging and management of patients. He referenced the impending lawsuit against Clearway Clinic in Worcester by a woman who accused the organization — which describes itself online as a nonprofit licensed medical clinic — of unfair and deceptive business practices for making her believe she was receiving proper medical care when staff failed to inform her that she had an ectopic pregnancy.

If the council approves the ordinance, Easthampton will join Somerville, Cambridge and Framingham, which have all passed similar language that has a focus on protecting reproductive health care.

Mayor Nicole LaChapelle told the Gazette that while she recognizes the effort of the City Council and Ordinance Committee in crafting the language for the ordinance, she notes that as mayor, she has an obligation to review municipal legislation for “conformity” to the city’s charter, the “administrative mandate” and “ability to execute.”

LaChapelle said that she had concerns with the previous versions of the ordinance and shared those concerns with President Homar Gomez.

“If it passes, he knows I will look at the ordinance for language to address my administrative concerns,” she said. “For me, reproductive rights are human rights, civil rights without question. The question here is a municipality in the best position to execute such an ordinance.”

Wednesday’s public hearing begins at 6:15 p.m. and will be held both virtually and in-person.

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