High court sides with anti-abortion pregnancy centers

Adam Liptak

©2018 The New York Times

WASHINGTON — California may not require “crisis pregnancy centers” to supply women with information about abortion, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The First Amendment prohibits the government from forcing the centers, which oppose abortion on religious grounds, to post notices at odds with their beliefs, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a five-justice majority. He was joined by the court’s more conservative members.

California, he wrote, can use other means to tell women about the availability of abortion, including advertising. But “California cannot co-opt the licensed facilities to deliver its message for it,” he wrote.

In a dissent that he summarized from the bench, Justice Stephen Breyer accused the majority of acting inconsistently. In 1992, he noted, the Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law that required doctors who performed abortions to provide some kinds of information to their patients.

“If a state can lawfully require a doctor to tell a woman seeking an abortion about adoption services, why should it not be able, as here, to require a medical counselor to tell a woman seeking prenatal care or other reproductive health care about childbirth and abortion services?” he asked.

Michael Farris, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the centers, said he welcomed the ruling.

“No one should be forced by the government to express a message that violates their convictions, especially on deeply divisive subjects such as abortion,” he said. “In this case, the government used its power to force pro-life pregnancy centers to provide free advertising for abortion. The Supreme Court said that the government can’t do that and that it must respect prolife beliefs.”

The case, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, No. 16-1140, concerned a California law that requires centers operated by opponents of abortion to post notices that free or lowcost abortion, contraception and prenatal care are available to low-income women through public programs and to provide the phone number for more information.

The California Legislature found that the roughly 200 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.”

RANDY SNYDER / ASSOCIATED PRESS 2007 The First Amendment bars California from making antiabortion “crisis pregnancy centers” post items against their beliefs, wrote Justice Clarence Thomas.