New law forces pro-life clinics to promote abortion

Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif.

A judge will be asked at a court hearing next month to suspend a new California law that forces faith-based, pro-life pregnancy clinics to inform clients of the government's subsidized abortion services.

WND reported last month that Gov. Jerry Brown had signed the bill into law, even though the same legislation failed in New York when it was challenged in the courts.

Brown's signature on AB 775 immediately triggered a series of lawsuits over its demands that religious pregnancy clinics tell women and girls that California has public programs to provide immediate, free or low-cost abortions.

The Pacific Justice Institute had announced that the cases were filed in both Southern and Northern California on behalf of clinics.

Now, lawyers with the organization are asking the judge to halt enforcement of the law while the full case is resolved.

"It is imperative that we stop the government from forcing people of conscience to advocate messages to which they are morally and religiously opposed. If the government can do this, none of our First Amendment freedoms are secure," said PJI President Brad Dacus.

Read the tested and proven strategies to defeat the abortion cartel, in "Abortion Free: Your Manual for Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time."

He said the hearing is scheduled Dec. 18 before Judge Kimberly Mueller. The request is for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the law from going into effect on Jan. 1, 2016.

The pro-life centers fighting the new forced-speech requirement provide free medical services and counseling "as an alternative option to abortion to women facing unwanted pregnancies," PJI said.

"Forcing a religious pro-life charity to proclaim a pro-abortion declaration is on its face an egregious violation of both the free speech and free exercises clauses of the First Amendment," said Dacus when the cases were announced.

"We will not rest until this government mandate is completely halted," he said.

The complaint argues the law forces Christian medical clinics to issue messages that violate their beliefs.

"The content of the government message memorialized in AB 775 directly contradicts the foundational religious principles upon which A Woman's Friend operates, as well as the message it conveys to its clients regarding abortion," the complaint explains. "As a result, A Woman's Friend is subject to imminent adverse enforcement action against it by defendant."

California's Democrat attorney general, Kamala Harris, urged the legislature to adopt the bill and fine faith organizations $500 if they fail to provide the abortion information the first time. Fines thereafter would be $1,000 per incident.

The law requires faith groups to tell women: "California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including allocating FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women. To determine whether you qualify, contact the county social services office at (insert the telephone number)."

It also requires that the message not only be handed out but also posted on the walls of waiting rooms on signs with specified dimensions.

A clinic bringing the complaint, A Woman's Friend, "offers, and will continue to offer, to women and girls a variety of services at its clinic."

The services include medical consultations, pregnancy testing, ultrasound examinations and medical referrals. The center also provides Bible-based, post-abortion emotional and spiritual healing and recovery courses.

It does not, the complaint explains, "counsel girls and women to obtain abortions."

"A Woman's Friend holds the biblically based conviction that human life is a precious gift of immeasurable value given by God and that the taking of innocent human life by abortion is evil and a sin," the court document states.

The second organization cited in the complaint is the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Northern California, which offers services similar to A Woman's Friend.

For both, the complaint states: "The requirement that plaintiffs disseminate the state of California's message for which the clinic disagrees violates its rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as made applicable to the state through the Fourteenth Amendment. The law mandates speech that plaintiffs would not otherwise make."

It continues, "At a minimum, the act unconstitutionally compels plaintiffs to speak [a] message that they have not chosen, with which they do not agree, and that distract, and detract from, the messages they have chosen to speak."

The lawsuit seeks a judgment that the law is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced.

"The context of delivering this government message is the center of a public debate over the morality and efficacy of abortion, for which these clinics provide alternatives," the lawsuit reads.

WND reported the resolution to a similar case in New York.

At the time, constitutional attorney Herbert W. Titus of William J. Olson, P.C. told WND that according to the First Amendment, you "can't be forced to carry someone else's message."

In New York, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said the state could require crisis pregnancy centers to disclose whether they have a licensed medical provider on staff but not whether the center provides abortions or referrals, because that violates the First Amendment.

The ruling was left untouched by the Supreme Court.

Titus, who has taught constitutional law, common law and other subjects for decades at several universities, said it's "not the government's business to force anybody to carry the message of anyone else."

"That is certainly what's being done here."

Thomas Jefferson, he noted, described that very action as "sinful and tyrannical."

"It's fairly typical of California, [which is] always on the cutting edge of making us more and more like a fascist country, in which the state determines what we can say and what we can't say," Titus told WND.

Titus also has served as a trial attorney and special assistant U.S. attorney with the Department of Justice. He holds degrees from Harvard and the University of Oregon and for several years had his own daily radio program. He has testified on constitutional issues before Congress and state legislatures.

The California bill makes no attempt at accommodation.

Read the tested and proven strategies to defeat the abortion cartel, in "Abortion Free: Your Manual for Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time."