Abortion
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California Attorney General Xavier Becerra/Photo by Knight Foundation (CC)
(Kaylee McGhee, Liberty Headlines) The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a state law requiring crisis pregnancy centers to supply women with information about abortions violates their right to free speech.
The vote was 5 to 4, with the court’s conservative justices carrying the majority.
The case, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, NO. 16-1140, concerned a California law that requires centers operated by pro-life individuals to provide women with information about how to obtain an abortion procedure.
But these centers seek to persuade women to choose life.
The centers argued the law violated their right to free speech and their religious beliefs by forcing them to convey messages that oppose their values.
“Crisis pregnancy centers like NIFLA serve women and children according to their religious mission, and California should respect that,” said Mark Rienzi, president of religious liberty legal nonprofit Becket. “This ruling proves that when it comes to important issues, the government doesn’t get to tell people what to believe, and it also doesn’t get to tell people what to say about it.”
The law’s defenders, however, argued it countered misleading information provided by crisis centers.
The California legislature released a statementsaying that nearly 200 crisis pregnancy centers in the state used “intentionally deceptive advertising and counseling practices that often confuse, misinform, and even intimidate women from making fully-informed, time-sensitive decisions about critical health care.”
**MORE COVERAGE OF THE SUPREME COURT at LibertyHeadlines.com**
A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9thCircuit ruled in favor of the state and upheld the law.
“California has a substantial interest in the health of its citizens, including ensuring that its citizens have access to and adequate information about constitutionally protected medical services like abortion,” Judge Dorothy W. Nelson wrote for the panel in its decision.
The Supreme Court struck this ruling down, saying that compelled speech violates the First Amendment and that other beliefs must be respected.
Since the Court’s ruling, several elected officials have praised it, calling it a “victory” for free speech and religious beliefs.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said California’s law was discriminatory and the Court rightly upheld pregnancy centers’ rights.
“To force a pro-life clinic to advertise the very thing it opposes is an egregious violation of the First Amendment,” Cotton said in a statement. “The state of California’s discrimination against crisis pregnancy centers was deliberate and cruel, and the Court rightly upheld these centers’ right to free speech.”
President of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins said if this case had been the other way around, the California state law would never have been passed.
“What if the government made a vegan grocer post ads for the local butcher shop? Everyone would agree that that’s not fair,” Perkins said. “This case is no different and thankfully, the Court recognized that fact.”
California politicos demonstrated a severe overreach of power by passing this law, Perkins said.
It was a clear violation of the First Amendment, because the government tried to force private entities to promote a message they didn’t agree with.
“The First Amendment is clear in its wording and guarantees all Americans are legally protected from compelled speech by their government,” he said. “California lawmakers, through this law that has now been struck down, attempted to override the First Amendment, forcing private entities to speak messages against their beliefs, and punishing them if they don’t comply. That this could happen in America, should be of grave concern to all Americans, regardless of their views on abortion.”
In the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the Court struck down the state law because it “unduly burdens protected speech.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy agreed in a concurring opinion, writing: “Governments must not be allowed to force persons to express a message contrary to their deepest convictions. Freedom of speech secures freedom of thought and belief. This law imperils those liberties. It is forward thinking to begin by reading the First Amendment as ratified in 1791; to understand the history of authoritarian government as the Founders then knew it; to confirm that history since then shows how relentless authoritarian regimes are in their attempts to stifle free speech; and to carry those lessons onward as we seek to preserve and teach the necessity of freedom of speech for the generations to come.”
