The state of California is denying pregnant women the private “choice of life,” according to a lawsuit filed in federal district court yesterday on behalf of a crisis pregnancy center.
The complaint alleges the state has failed to provide a clinical license to the Pregnancy Care Center of El Cajon, near San Diego, after more than two years because it offers “non-lethal choices” to women.
The “right to privacy” under the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision has been used to justify allowance of a wide range of medical activities in abortion clinics, explained attorney Richard Ackerman. But the same latitude has not been afforded clinics offering women an alternative, he contends.
Ackerman’s public interest group, Lively, Ackerman & Cody, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court in San Diego, calling it a precedent-setting case.
“Crisis pregnancy centers, while a bastion of Christian reproductive health philosophy, have been slow to demand the same rights fought for by the enemy since 1973,” said Ackerman. “While we demand that Roe v. Wade be overturned, the reality is that Roe remains the law, and the women served by the center have rights too.”
The center, which has been waiting for a license for two years, charges it has been discriminated against because of its pro-life views on prenatal care.
Officials from the California Department of Health Services’ licensing and certification office in San Diego could not be reached for comment.
Ackerman asserts the state has 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 alleges California has 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 last August against Planned Parenthood clinics in Los Angeles and San Diego on behalf of a California woman who alleges she was required to offer medical services she was not licensed to perform, including assisting physicians with abortions.
The El Cajon center says it is 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 alleges.
“It’s about time that the judicial system recognize that the ability to choose life is just as much a part of a woman’s ‘right to privacy’ as the purported right to kill her own offspring,” Ackerman said.
Related story:
