Unpacking the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ruling In Favor of Pregnancy Resource Centers

Abortion, Pro-Life, , ,

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court issued a very important, pro-life opinion in favor of California’s pregnancy resource centers.

The ruling struck down a California law that required pregnancy resource centers to tell women that abortion is available at little or no cost; the law also required the centers to give the women a telephone number to call to learn more about qualifying to have an abortion paid for with tax dollars.

Needless to say, a lot of misinformation has been spread about the law and about yesterday’s court decision that struck it down.

Below is a brief overview of the implications of this good court ruling.

The Law Targeted Pregnancy Resource Centers

As the Supreme Court noted, California’s law was intended from the start to single out pregnancy resource centers for special regulation.

Writing for the court, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted that California’s law targeted pregnancy resource centers, requiring them to tell women about abortion. The law was written in such a way that it applied to pregnancy resource centers that provide women alternatives to abortion, but it exempted other types of facilities that work with female patients.

In the ruling, Justice Thomas summed it up this way:

[A] facility that advertises and provides pregnancy tests is covered by the [law], but a facility across the street that advertises and provides nonprescription contraceptives is excluded [from the law].

Simply put, the state doesn’t have any business singling out pregnancy resource centers and requiring them to promote abortion.

The Ruling Protects Free Speech and Religious Liberty

It’s important to note that many pregnancy resource centers are faith-based and exist to give women real options besides abortion. They provide pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, adoption referrals, maternity clothes, and diapers, and other resources — typically free of charge. California’s law effectively required the centers to do abortion referrals as well.

In their lawsuit against the State of California, the pregnancy resource centers argued the state law violated their religious liberties and their rights to free speech. This week the U.S. Supreme Court agreed.

After a lengthy legal battle, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the pregnancy resource centers. The court made it clear California’s law burdened the pregnancy resource centers’ religious liberties and their right to free speech.

In a separate opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote that the California Legislature should have read the First Amendment before passing the law and implied that California’s law was authoritarian, writing,

Governments must not be allowed to force persons to express a message contrary to their deepest convictions. Freedom of speech secures freedom of thought and belief. This law imperils those liberties.

With this ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court once again upholds Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

In recent years, the ACLU and others have targeted Christians who want to operate according to their deeply-held convictions. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of religious liberty repeatedly. The government cannot force someone to violate his or her religious convictions, and it cannot stop someone from living out his or her faith.

This week’s ruling upholds the religious liberties of pregnancy resource centers. That helps reinforce the court’s past rulings in favor of religious freedom as well.

The Ruling Affirms Pregnancy Resource Centers

Abortion advocates have tried to paint pregnancy resource centers as “fake medical clinics” that promote junk science.

The truth is pregnancy resource centers empower women with real options besides abortion. Many of them offer state-of-the-art, medical-grade equipment and services. Many provide ultrasounds and pregnancy testing. Most offer maternity clothes and baby supplies. Many also provide parenting classes or counseling services. Best of all, these services typically are provided to women and their families free of charge.

California’s law singled out pregnancy resource centers and subjected them to unnecessary regulations that required the centers to violate their deeply-held religious convictions. The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms that pregnancy resource centers are legitimate organizations that have the same liberties as anyone else.

The Ruling Protects Pro-Life Informed-Consent Laws Like Arkansas’

Abortion advocates have tried to compare California’s law to informed-consent laws the courts have upheld repeatedly.

Informed-consent laws require abortion doctors to give women all the facts about abortion beforehand — including abortion’s risks, consequences, and alternatives. In Arkansas, women who receive this information must be given at least 48 hours to weigh all their options before the abortion can be performed.

Some have tried to argue that California’s law is no different from these informed-consent laws — that it simply requires pregnancy resource centers to tell women all of their options. However, the court disagreed.

In its decision, the U.S. Supreme Court distinguished California’s law regulating pregnancy resource centers from the good laws states have passed requiring doctors to give women all the facts about abortion. In its opinion, the court wrote,

In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, for example, this Court upheld a law requiring physicians to obtain informed consent before they could perform an abortion. . . .

The licensed notice at issue here is not an informed consent requirement or any other regulation of professional conduct. The notice does not facilitate informed consent to a medical procedure. In fact, it is not tied to a procedure at all. It applies to all interactions between a covered facility [pregnancy resource center] and its clients, regardless of whether a medical procedure is ever sought, offered, or performed.

In other words, the fact that a doctor has to tell a woman about the risks and alternatives prior to performing a surgical abortion on her doesn’t mean pregnancy resource centers have to promote abortion to everyone they see.

A few people worried that the Supreme Court would threaten informed-consent laws like Arkansas’ if it ruled in favor of California’s pregnancy resource centers. However, the court ruling clearly does not.

It protects pregnancy resource centers from regulations that single them out for opposing abortion, but it does not threaten pro-life informed-consent laws like Arkansas’. That’s good news.

Read the entire U.S. Supreme Court ruling here.

Photo Credit: By Brian Turner (Flickr: My Trusty Gavel) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Arkansas August 15 Home School Registration Requirement Has Not Changed

Home School

The Arkansas law has not changed.  If you intend to home school during the coming school year, you must give notice to your local school superintendent by August 15.

Some people have incorrectly assumed that they no longer need to turn in a notice of intent to home school. To be clear, every Arkansas home school family must register by August 15.

There is confusion over an email this week from our friends at the Home School Legal Defense Association, a national home school advocacy organization based in Virginia.

The email correctly stated that Arkansas home schoolers can make their own notice of intent form or use a form provided by HSLDA or anyone else rather than putting their information on the Notice of Intent to Home School form provided by the Arkansas Department of Education.   However, some people incorrectly thought that they no longer needed to register or turn in a notice of intent to home school.  This assumption is incorrect.

Arkansas’ August 15 home school registration deadline is still a legal requirement as it has been for the past 30 years.  Since the information you are required to provide is the same, no matter whose notice of intent form you use, we believe you will encounter fewer issues if you use the Notice of Intent form provided by the Department of Education as you always have done.

Our effort to clear up any confusion is not from a lack of appreciation for HSLDA. We appreciate Scott Woodruff and all our friends at HSLDA.  They have helped us win numerous home school battles over the years in Arkansas.  I am certain we will need their help in the future.  They are the world’s leading home school advocacy organization, and we encourage every home schooler in Arkansas to support their efforts and be a part of HSLDA.

Here is more about what has changed.

You can create your own notice of intent form and put the required information on it, or you can use a form provided by someone else and put the required information on that form.  You can turn either of these in to your local school superintendent.  This is because the letter of the law says that you must provide written notice to your local school superintendent.  It does not specifically say you have to use the form provided by the state as a means of providing this written notice.  You have a choice as to whose piece of paper you put the required information on, but the information required is the same for any notice of intent to home school.

Since the information required is the same no matter which method you use, we suggest that you use the form provided by the state as you always have done for the following reasons.

  1. Local school officials may not know about this change, so they are not likely to accept your notice of intent if you do it yourself or use a form that they don’t recognize as being from the State Department of Education.
  2. There is no guarantee that a form you create or a form created by anyone else will have all the information required by the law.  You could be out of compliance with the law and not know it.
  3. Local school officials and those who record the information at the Department of Education who are unfamiliar with notices of intent made at home or made by someone else are likely to encounter problems accurately recording your data.  This is a problem if someone complains to the Department of Human Services about your children and no one can find any record that you registered as required by law.
  4. You are likely to end up in a battle with local school officials or with the Department of Education over something that may not be worth your time.

It is nice to have the ability to use other notice of intent forms if it ever becomes necessary.  Just because you can do this does not mean that we think you should.  As someone said, “This may not be worth slapping the skunk over.”

If you are on our mailing list, you will be receiving the updated Arkansas Department of Education Notice of Intent form in the mail in a couple of weeks. You can download and print a copy at the Arkansas Department of Education website at http://www.arkansased.gov/divisions/learning-services/home-school.

After July 1, you can complete your notice of intent online thorough the Department of Education website.  Before you register online, be sure you are completing the 2018-2019 form and not the old form from last school year that may still be active until the change to the new school year is made in July.

Please contact us if you have any questions or comments.

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U.S. Supreme Court Rules State Can’t Force Pregnancy Centers to Promote Abortion

Abortion, Pro-Life, Religious Freedom, , , , ,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, June 26, 2018

On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California law that required pregnancy resource centers to tell pregnant women that low-cost and publicly funded abortion is available in California, and to give the women a phone number to call.

Family Council President Jerry Cox issued a statement, saying, “This is a really good ruling. California, Illinois, and Hawaii have passed laws that effectively require pregnancy resource centers to do abortion referrals. Pregnancy resource centers exist to help women choose options besides abortion. Forcing them to promote abortion goes against their very purpose. I’m glad the U.S. Supreme Court understood that and struck down California’s law today.”

Cox said the ruling is good for pregnancy resource centers in Arkansas. “Legislators in Arkansas haven’t tried to regulate pregnancy resource centers the way politicians in other states have, but this court decision still helps Arkansas’ pregnancy resource centers. The ruling protects Arkansas’ pregnancy resource centers just as much as it does the centers in California. The court’s decision does not call into question any of the good laws that Arkansas has passed in recent years requiring abortion facilities to give women all the facts about abortion—including its risks, consequences, and alternatives. The ruling reaffirms that the government cannot force people to violate their deeply-held religious convictions. All in all, that’s good for everyone.”

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