After a long battle with the state, an administrative court has awarded a San Diego-area crisis pregnancy center a license to expand its services.

California's Department of Health Services admitted it was imposing arbitrary rules to prevent the East County Pregnancy Care Center of El Cajon from being licensed, according to Scott Lively of the public-interest group Lively & Ackerman, which argued the case.

This was an important case, Lively said, since many CPCs seek to be licensed and have faced similar problems.

"The decision is a wonderful affirmation of the crisis pregnancy center's equal citizenship in the communty as service providers," Lively told WND. "The accusation in the past from the liberal side has been that CPCs are really thinly veiled attempts at shutting abortion clinics down, and that they don't have an actual standing in the community of their own."

The in-court settlement was administrated by a judge in the state Department of Health Services' Office of Administrative Hearings and Appeals.

It allows the clinic to offer ultrasound services, pregnancy testing by nurses and direct doctor-patient care at the facility.

The clinic will receive a provisional license 30 days after Wednesday's decision.

The license application was made in August 2001, but it took nearly two years for the health agency to issue a denial, despite being under a statutory rule that requires a decision within 100 days of application.

During that time, the department was contacted by a state lawmaker, but the denial came only after a local newspaper inquired about the delay.

As WorldNetDaily reported, Lively's group filed a suit over the license denial in the U.S. District Court in San Diego. This week's decision makes that case -- which centered on whether the clinic could issue over-the-counter pregnancy tests -- moot, Lively said.

In the federal case, Lively had argued California was denying pregnant women the private "choice of life."

Alluding to Planned Parenthood centers, which promote abortion, the complaint alleged the state failed to provide the license because the clinic offers "non-lethal choices" to women.

The "right to privacy" under the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision has been used to justify allowance of a wide range of medical activities in abortion clinics, Lively's group argued. But the same latitude has not been afforded clinics offering women an alternative, it contended.

In an interview with WND last year, attorney Richard Ackerman asserted the state put the center in a Catch 22 situation.

"They told our client they needed a pharmacy permit, but you can't have one without a clinic license," he told WorldNetDaily. "Obviously, they haven't imposed that on anyone else. If they did, then Planned Parenthood, in theory, should not be in existence."

The complaint further alleged California consciously ignored dozens of violations discovered at a local Planned Parenthood facility, which competes with the center for the attention of pregnant women.

As WorldNetDaily reported, a separate suit was filed against Planned Parenthood clinics in Los Angeles and San Diego on behalf of a California woman who alleged she was required to offer medical services she was not licensed to perform, including assisting physicians with abortions.

The El Cajon center was not allowed to privately offer, or even discuss, an over-the-counter pregnancy test with a client, while California allows unlicensed abortion facility personnel to dispense, discuss and administer the 'morning after pill.'

This imbalance in available choices violates equal protection principles under the U.S. Constitution, the center alleged.

Related stories:

Pro-lifers' federal suit demands 'choice'

'Time bomb' lawsuit against Planned Parenthood