WND EXCLUSIVE
California forces Christians to disobey own beliefs
New law orders faith-based organizations to refer women to abortionists
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/california-forces-christians-to-disobey-own-beliefs/#rqWUiqe4fy8xYjLw.99
California’s Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a compelled speech plan into law that orders faith-based organizations to refer women to abortionists – even though the same idea was tried earlier in New York – and failed.
Brown’s signature on AB 775 just days ago already has triggered a series of lawsuits, because it forces religious pregnancy clinics to tell women and girls that California has public programs to provide immediate – and free or low-cost – abortions.
Officials with the Pacific Justice Institute announced on Monday the filing of lawsuits in both southern and northern California on behalf of clinics.
Those organizations provide free medical services and counseling “as an alternative option to abortion to women facing unwanted pregnancies,” the organization 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 Brad Dacus, chief of the institute.
“We will not rest until this government mandate is completely halted.”
The complaint explains the law forces Christian medical clinics to give to women a message with which they profoundly disagree.
“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.”
The law’s message is, “California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including allo FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women. To determine whether you qualify, contact the county social servicdes office at (insert the telephone number].”
It also requires the message not only be handed out but also posted on the walls of waiting rooms – in a specified size of type and size of sign.
The clinic, A Woman’s Friend, “offers, and will continue to offer, to women and girls a variety of services at its clinic. Said services include medical consultations, pregnancy testing, ultrasound examinations and medical referrals. The plaintiff also provides education related to sexually transmitted diseases and infections, informations and abortion procedures, prenantal education, nutrition information and fetal development education.
“They also provide Bible-based post abortion emotional and spiritual healing and recovery courses, and other practical support related to pregnancy.”
It does not, the complaint explains, “counsel girls and women to obtain abortions.”
“A Woman’s Friend holds the bibilically 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 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 action 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 only this summer the resolution to a similar fight 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 runs afoul of 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