Discussion: SCOTUS Skeptical Of CA Law Regulating Anti-Abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers

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“When you put all this together, you get a very suspicious pattern,” Alito said."

Said the guy who is perfectly fine with complicated and expensive legislature schema blatantly targeting abortion clinics with excessive and medically needless requirements just to create astronomic expenses and hurdles to doing business and thereby force them to close.

And fuck Kagan and Sotomayor. This is about informed consent. These “pregnancy counseling centers” or whatever the fuck they call themselves are providing medical and health care advice and steering people towards the desired “treatment” by deliberately failing to inform them of all options. If states get to force ultra-sounds on people, then they sure as fuck can force all clinics…regardless of their “mission”…to provide information about ALL medical and health care alternatives AND to inform the public as to their licensing status… This is fucking absurd. Form over substance.

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“The court has previously upheld requirements that doctors in abortion clinics must tell patients about alternatives to abortion.”

Nope, nope, nope: No blindingly-obvious double-standard brighter than the light of a thousand suns here, folks.

Move along now.

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Well, Golly Gee!

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But Republicans don’t understand hypocrisy. They think its a disease that only affects Democrats.

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Seems that way from the article but I’ll wait for the decision before saying more.

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The (almost) ironic bit is that this bill ultimately protects the forced-birthers from the consequences of their actions. Ambulance-chasers should put up billboards next to these places.

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I know where they’re going: it’s too “targeted” and has to be more of a blanket law. Still, that “analysis” is only flying because the conservatives on the court suddenly think that’s important when it affects anti-abortion activists, but support regulating PP out of business when there’s no other way to interpret the law but a deliberate regulatory destruction of the economics of their business.

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The ironic thing is that it’s correct that the state can mandate what a doctor must provide for informed consent to be satisfied. These anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” hide behind NOT being licensed…ergo, arguably NOT providing medical/health care…ergo, NOT required to meet the strictures of informed consent. It’s complete bullshit. They should have to either be licensed or forced to state that they are not licensed and are not providing medical/health care advice.

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Their hypocrisy is obvious and galling. No question.

But re Kagan and Sotomayor, whom you earlier mentioned: I’ll give them a chance to reflect and write.

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The fact that these ‘crisis centers’ deliberately mislead girls and women about what they do and who they are ought to be taken into the court’s decision.

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I agree. They are odious entities and I get mad when I seem them rolled out near/next to Planned Parenthoods, knowing full well what they are and what they do (and don’t do). We need to do to them what gynoticians are trying to do to Planned Parenthood: Regulate them out of existence. IMHO they shouldn’t be allowed to pretend that they are anything but what they are. :angry:

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I think there was a time when Pro-Choice adherents believed that we could ‘compromise’ with Pro-Life supporters, respect their religious/moral concerns and walk back a few steps from unrestricted abortion rights regardless of trimester or reason. Aaron. wrote a fine essay several months ago with background information on the topic that I recently read.

Coming from a Catholic background, I know firsthand that Catholic voters are (despite Vatican ruling) all over the map on the question of abortion, depending on how conservative to liberal your religious beliefs are. At the best of times I was always an a la carte-Catholic, which in conservative opinion means I was no Catholic at all.

But within the last two decades, it’s become obvious that the Pro-Life movement doesn’t want concessions; they want the whole enchilada–the Constitutional right revoked. They’re now pushing for banning contraception. Which is ridiculous. Not even my conservative female relatives would go for that because the idea of birthing 8-10 children is not exactly attractive. And the rhythm method? Give me a break. Magic potions would be just as effective.

In my mind this regulation argument on Crisis Pregnancy Centers is just another assault on a woman’s right to choose. For herself. Which is what Pro-Choice has always been about. You do that with all the information available, the pros, the cons, the alternative choices. But the ultimate choice is yours. Holding back information or steering a person in only one direction is a shim-sham operation, taking the power away from a woman and turning it over to the Pro-life cult and their army of fetus fetishists.

As for Kagan and Sotomayor? I’ll wait to read their arguments. But compromising–even a wee bit–on the issue of Choice is no longer on my personal menu.

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Great read. I think the concern about pro-life states limiting doctors speech, when it pertains to lethal weapons substances in ones home, certainly can be turned around the other way. I think the law should be re-written, with the advice of the SCOTUS, to survive scrutiny.

Also I think it is laughable to consider the pregnancy centers, the ones supported by anti-abortion businesses and Non-Profits, honest brokers. They clearly do not think it is right to have the legal procedure of abortion and often advocate the entire legality of the practice. Doctors on the other hand are simply describing the choices, all of the legal choices an a patient has. Also the pregnancy centers, often advocate against birth control, which by the way is just nuts, again showing that they are not honest brokers.

Well that is just my two cents.

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I don’t think anyone would object to Anti Abortion Centers if they called themselves that. But they don’t. They lure people in crises to push a religiously motivated agenda on them. That agenda is probably not going to help them. It’s the job of government to protect people from institutional lying so I don’t see why Justices would object to a government doing that.

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Might this not end up bouncing back and invalidating all the forced birther bs places, precedent wise?

also, they do nothing but push a couple of pamphlets on a girl and tell her how to get wic and other public welfare benefits - no real health care or financial help.

So what you’re saying, Justice Alito, is that false advertising is protected by the 1st Amendment when it has to do with anti-choice “medical” clinics?

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This probably will depend on 1st amendment speech protections…the “crisis centers” have a right to lie to their “patients”. The state of CA can’t stop them from doing that, or force them to say something they don’t believe in; the difference with the BS abortion rules other states pass is they make them into medical regulations that doctors have to follow. The “crisis centers” don’t have doctors, so there isn’t a way to regulate them in the same way.

I suspect the solution is going to be a new law that redefines how these centers have to be licensed, as they say they are medical practitioners, and then requires all the offices to post information about what services they provide. Making the list a checklist means women that go will see a list of all the possible services, and what the centers don’t do. CA could also, as part of this, require all providers to give that list as part of their interactions with patients, or something similar. This seems like it will be legal, as long as it applies to everyone…the SC tends to look down on things that single out a group (though how they apply it is sometimes a bit stretchy).

It’s BS that the centers can lie to women the way they do, and that they act like they are the same kind of thing as Planned Parenthood. Stopping that is critically important; CA will figure out a way to do that which will pass court muster, and set a precedent, it may just take some more time.