Justices Back Pregnancy Centers That Oppose Abortion, in Free Speech Case

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — A state law requiring “crisis pregnancy centers” to supply women with information about abortion likely violates the First Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in blocking the law.

The vote was 5 to 4, with the court’s more conservative justices in the majority.

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 provide women with information about the availability of the procedure. The centers seek to persuade women to choose parenting or adoption.

The state requires the centers to post notices that free or low-cost abortion, contraception and prenatal care are available to low-income women through public programs, and to provide the phone number for more information.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/politics/supreme-court-crisis-pregnancy-center-abortion.html

[47of74]

1. Fuck you purists.

[riversedge]

3. I think it is a bad day for Democrats and for America.

[leftynyc]

5. +1000

I'm more pissed at them than at the imbecile trump humpers. They're SUPPOSED to be smarter and it turns out they're imbeciles as well for not voting for Hillary on this issue alone.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. So we can all open an office and play doctors?

Sound like #FakeNews has come to our medical care

Lying is permitted, no bad news ever given to the patient!

[Maven]

4. We should protest outside these centers the same way they protest abortion providers.

Let the women going in know they have options. Free speech right?

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Why not?

[7962]

8. good point. As long as its on public property they could only whine.

[deurbano]

10. Good idea! (That was my first response, but edited below)

Edited to rethink past my original reflexive response: I was once the pregnant teenager trying to get help when I decided not to have an abortion. (A decision that really surprised me at the time...) I certainly wouldn't have wanted any onlookers at that difficult time.

[But some kind of similarly Supreme Court protected ongoing harassment of the people who are doing/funding the clinic harassing?]

[Coventina]

31. I get your point, but I don't want to put women through that.

I don't want women to be punished no matter what choice they make.

[cannabis_flower]

7. I'll be ok with that as long as...

They are upfront and tell you before going in that they are anti-abortion propaganda mills.

Many years ago, I thought I might be pregnant and went to a place that advertised "Free Pregnancy Test".

I went and first they talked to me and got a urine sample and said that I needed to watch a film. Then they left and locked the door and locked me in a room where there was a television playing a movie that showed an abortion and it was pretty gross to watch. I couldn't leave and I couldn't turn off film because they had put it up high on the wall. And it was all for nothing because I didn't want to get an abortion in the first place.

This was before cell phones. If something like that happened nowadays I would have called the police and said I was being held against my will.

When she came back she told me I wasn't pregnant.

[duhneece]

19. Same thing happened here

Also 10ish years ago

[cannabis_flower]

35. Mine was around 1986

[Lonestarblue]

9. What a travesty this Supreme Court is!

Gerrymandering is okay if Republicans win, discrimination is perfectly legal if you’re a religious zealot who wants to serve just the part of the public who live the life you think they should, and now it’s perfectly okay for religious zealots with no medical training to provide healthcare to pregnant women. And in earlier cases, voting rights for minorities aren’t important enough to protect, it’s okay for anyone and everyone in the country to own enough military weapons to start their own small army and to hell with the citizens who get killed by the nutcases, it’s okay for your boss to decide whether you can have birth control (Hobby Lobby), and corporations are just people like the rest of us and can use unlimited amounts of money to buy politicians and their votes on favorable legislation. Got it. And lower courts are approving the resegregation of schools through charters. I did not think we could go so far backwards in such a short time. I truly am ready to split this country into two smaller countries so we can have a decent democratic form of government that actually works for the people. Let the religious right have their own country. It would collapse in a matter of years because most of the young people wanting to get ahead would beg to join the progressive country, and the religious nuts are mostly older white people who will eventually die out. Sorry for the rant, but I’m angry at the destruction of my country.

[47of74]

13. I honestly think the United States is dying

I think it's going to collapse in upon itself into an evil, hollow shell. I was hoping that the collapse wouldn't happen in my lifetime but I think that it'll happen sooner than that.

[DFW]

15. I sympathize, but it wouldn't work

The crazies in the Backward Zone would see that their youngest and brightest were leaving for our side, and they'd do exactly what their Stalinist soul brothers did in 1961 in Berlin. The first thing they'd do is build a barrier preventing them from leaving. When that doesn't work, they would then start a war, because accurately foreseeing their own dissipation, they would prefer to demolish us by force, and then say "God wills it," rather than admit that the only people desiring their way of life are the ones who make and enforce the rules.

"Und so es geschah wie es immer geschieht, wo Ruhe mehr gilt als Recht.
"Denn wo die Herrschenden Ruhe wollen, geht's den Beherrschten schlecht."

(And so it happened as it always happens where calm is worth more than justice
For where the rulers want calm, it goes badly for the ruled.)

--Hannes Wader, Der Rattenfänger (the Pied Piper)

[MarcA]

45. If they wanted to start a war, all the better to obliterate them. n/t

[MarcA]

46. Separating the States is not a bad idea. Such a rearrangement every

Century of so would keep a vigorous,humanitarian democracy alive;
rather than being dragged down by a decaying,decrepit authoritarian
state. That is the history of empires.

[Lonestarblue]

47. Of course I would have to move!

No way would I stay in the new Backward States of America, even in a blue city in this pool of Republican right-wing idiocy called Texas.

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Understand what's next: Lying - Fake abortion providers

that promote pregnancy and adoption

Everything will appear to be something other than what it really is

[greymattermom]

12. So does the same argument apply to

pregnancy termination centers? Free speech, right?

[forgotmylogin]

16. At least it's not a restriction *banning* centers from providing the info.

That would be more egregious IMO.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. Interesting

because I don't think the abortion providers ever really argued "first amendment". I think their focus has been "4th amendment" - but then I guess the technicality here is regarding how they "advertise" and the state cannot require how they should "advertise".

[Igel]

18. Abortion clinics are treated a bit differently.

A number of states have "informed consent" laws that require non-abortion alternatives be presented to women seeking abortion counseling. In some cases, the laws were enjoined. It's a narrow eye that needs to be threaded to make them count.

Suits were brought against these precisely on the same grounds: coerced speech is not free speech, even when no other right is involved. I may have no objection to people having a cheeseburger but that doesn't mean I can be coerced by the state to inform every customer that we offer cheeseburgers "off menu" or suggesting that they go elsewhere for a cheeseburger. That, of course, would be different under some orthodox halakhot, where there'd be a religious objection to advising milk + beef layered on top of free-speech concerns. (Or, for a more "authentic" example, requiring that halal restaurants run by your local Islamic center remind people that pork bacon goes good on everything and suggesting to every customer that perhaps s/he should dine not at Halal Haven but at Piggy's Porcine Palace across the street.)


It was decided by SCOTUS 20+ years ago that there's a governmental interest in protecting the unborn; a fetus should have a status distinct from that of, say, an appendix because in 9 months that appendix will be either an appendix or biological waste while that fetus will be either biological waste or a child. Make it so no human will ever have another appendix? Meh. Make it so no human will ever have another fetus? Genocide.

In other cases (not always SCOTUS) it was found that termination of a pregnancy is irreversible, while the decision not to terminate can be reversed a few days later with new information. In other words, the lack of information about alternatives to abortion can have an irreversible consequence that lack of information about abortion wouldn't have.

That said, coerced speech still bothers me. I don't like banning speech, but a lot of people seem to think it's okay when banning speech produces a social good. They just don't seem to agree on whose values should be imposed on the rest of the population, presumably immoral cretins every one. I think coercing speech is worse than banning speech.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

14. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FAMILY AND LIFE ADVOCATES, DBA NIFLA, ET AL. v. BECERRA

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1140_5368.pdf

Live blog of opinions (with SCOTUS Map and First Mondays)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

20. In the words of tRump, they should be careful what they wish for, because....

I saw this comment:

SCOTUS Sides With Fake “Crisis Pregnancy” Centers
....

Sam_Handwich • an hour ago
as someone noted at SCOTUS blog, there may be a bright side:

One interesting dynamic in this case is that many states have laws telling abortion providers what they need to say to women seeking abortions. Those laws have been challenged as undue burdens on the right to obtain an abortion -- and, as Breyer points out, have been upheld since Casey. But they haven't been challenged under the kind of First Amendment theory developed here. In the long run, the ruling here may limit states' ability to force doctors to provide certain kinds of information.

I found it. It's on page three of the comments.

Live blog of opinions with SCOTUS Map and First Mondays (Update: Completed)

By Andrew Hamm on Jun 26, 2018 at 9:52 am

The Supreme Court this morning released its opinions in Trump v. Hawaii and National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra.

Dan Epps and Leah Litman of First Mondays and Victoria Kwan of SCOTUS Map joined us from 9 to 9:45 a.m. The transcript of the live blog is available below and at this link.
....

Tejinder
12K+

Jun 26 2018 10:10 AM
2 hours ago

One interesting dynamic in this case is that many states have laws telling abortion providers what they need to say to women seeking abortions. Those laws have been challenged as undue burdens on the right to obtain an abortion -- and, as Breyer points out, have been upheld since Casey. But they haven't been challenged under the kind of First Amendment theory developed here. In the long run, the ruling here may limit states' ability to force doctors to provide certain kinds of information.

[BumRushDaShow]

21. And there you have it

Switch from a 4th amendment issue to a 1st and lets see what happens! All the "requiring showing a film" and other nonsense.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

22. Right. They could end up wishing they'd never heard of Becerra.

Good morning, and thank you for your threads today.

Unintended consequences

In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes that are not the ones foreseen and intended by a purposeful action. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. I expect lawyers and activists are busy today

And good morning to you as well! It's only Tuesday.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

25. I get a break this week, I think. BLS is not until July 6, right?

I guess ADP releases on July 5. I haven't even looked.

[BumRushDaShow]

27. Yup, July 6th

(despite the Wed. holiday but then the 1st is on a Sunday so they pretty much have to do it earlier within the month, than later)

https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/empsit.htm

[Proud Liberal Dem]

30. This is what occurred to me as well

The door can swing both ways now with laws requiring doctors to provide unscientifically proven information to women potentially being able to be struck down under the same constitutional reasoning.

[Scalded Nun]

23. McConnell needs to rot and burn in Hell for this

He alone set the stage for this illegitimate travesty of a court

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

43. Turtle says denying Obama his SCOTUS seat was "the greatest accomplishment of my career."

I hope he rots in Hell.

[C_U_L8R]

26. Yet they want to gag anyone give valid pregnancy information

Fuck you, Republicans.

[cstanleytech]

28. Why not simply write a law mandating that such centers must display a sign provided by the state

at all their entrances and not obscured that states that "This center is neither licensed nor authorized by the state to provide abortions nor are they required to provide you with assistance on where you might get one.".
That does not force them to do anything all it does is let people know that they are not licensed by the state to provide abortions.

[BumRushDaShow]

33. They may end up doing that as a "fix" to their law. nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

34. It's still mandated speech. NT

[cstanleytech]

42. Nope, it's just making the public informed that they are not licensed to

provide abortions it does not force them to provide the information about where to go to get one or how to get one which is probably really why the court ruling.

[Tactical Peek]

29. Thanks, Comey.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

32. "NIFLA probably spells the doom of those 'Doctors may not ask about guns' statutes."

NIFLA probably spells the doom of those "Doctors may not ask about guns" statutes. And it will be used -- not successfully, I think -- to attack statutes prohibiting so-called "conversion therapy."

Link to tweet

[turbinetree]

36. This and others rulings from this right wing court should make everyone

understand that this right wing court is not moving this country forward.......................its is moving this country backward...................they do not care for choice ----------------there all right wing men...............

[Vinca]

37. I'll be amazed if Roe survives this presidency.

[niyad]

38. am I the only one who remembers that, as we fought for the ERA, reproductive rights, equal pay, etc.

we were told that we did not need to, because the courts would protect us?

FUCK SCOTUS, FUCK each and every judge who sides with this criminal, obscene, hateful, vengeful maladministration.

LOCK THEM UP!!!!!!!! LOCK THEM UP!!!!!! LOCK THEM UP!!!! LOCK THEM UP!!!!

[keithbvadu2]

39. Sign up all republicans and supposed pro-lifers to adopt babies so they won't be aborted. How many

Sign up all republicans and supposed pro-lifers to adopt babies so they won't be aborted.

How many can we count on you and your church to adopt?

[Hugin]

40. Of course they did, it's all over, folks.

For a generation at a minimum.

[samnsara]

41. thats ok..We the People will identify them and provide the necessary alternative info...

....

[Jake Stern]

44. Easy fix: A nice big blue, reflective information sign about available abortion services

posted on public rights of way in front of these centers.

On edit: I'd say a minimum of 3' X 5'