Three faith-based pregnancy crises centers are taking on the state of California because of a law they say forces them to help women find abortion services.
On Jan. 1 2016, California enacted Ab-775, a law that requires pregnancy centers in the state to post a written statement in all clinics letting visitors know the state has abortion programs. Three faith-based pregnancy clinics filed a lawsuit against the state Thursday, saying the law violates their First Amendment rights by compelling speech they disagree with.
The statement, which centers must post to keep their license, is below:
California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including all FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women.
“This is reminiscent of the government-mandated messages in George Orwell’s 1984,” Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said in a statement. “AB 775 mandates that these faith-based, crisis pregnancy centers utter a state-drafted, pro-abortion message or be fined up to $1,000 each time they fail to comply.”
Along with the statement, the centers must give the phone number to social services where people are given more information about abortion programs.
The law’s purpose, as the state’s legislature described it, was to “ensure that California residents make their personal reproductive health care decisions knowing their rights and the health care services available to them” but the Liberty Counsel, the Christian legal group representing the clinics, argues in the lawsuit that the law is “unconstitutional on its face and as applied.”
“What we are seeing is the evolution of political correctness,” Staver said in a statement. “While the PC movement used social consequences to restrict speech, now the secular, progressive California legislature is using the law and fines to mandate speech. This is not only anti-American, it should be terrifying to every freedom-loving American. The right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are both protected by the First Amendment.”
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