SUPREME COURT TO HEAR IMPORTANT CASE ABOUT FREE SPEECH AND ABORTION
SUPREME COURT TO HEAR IMPORTANT CASE ABOUT FREE SPEECH AND ABORTION
Pray for justice to result from this Supreme Court case about the free speech rights of pro-life pregnancy centers. Ask God to bless the work of crisis pregnancy centers.
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives (Col 1:9)
“What if a state forced all of its citizens to display a message on their cars that reads, “Live Free or Die”? George and Maxine Maynard were in just that position and objected to the phrase both politically and religiously, so they didn’t want the government to force them to display it on their vehicle. The Supreme Court agreed and ruled in their favor in 1977’s Wooley v. Maynard decision — an outcome that would have been even easier for the Maynards to achieve if the state of New Hampshire had been foolish enough to require only those who disagree with the message to display it.
But what state would ever do that? California would — and does.
The Reproductive FACT Act, AB 775, targets pro-life pregnancy-care centers because they “discourage” abortion. That’s not an allegation; the state admits this to be the case. The law forces these centers to advertise for the abortion industry by requiring the display of a message informing women how to obtain a free or low-cost abortion from the state — including a phone number to call. Women who call that number and ask about obtaining an abortion are referred to Planned Parenthood and other organizations that perform abortions.
The state claims it is justified in forcing the pro-life centers to present a message that contradicts the very reason they exist because a center somewhere might decide to be deceptive in the counsel it gives to women….
This demonstrates that California’s likely real motivation is to discourage the pro-life message that these pregnancy-care centers express, so it is coopting them to convey its own pro-abortion message….
That’s why NIFLA asked Alliance Defending Freedom to file a lawsuit on its behalf to have the law declared unconstitutional. To date, both the federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit have refused to keep the law from being enforced against NIFLA and its pro-life pregnancy-care center members. So now ADF has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up NIFLA’s case.
The justices may very well decide to review the case because other federal courts in New York, Maryland, and Texas have found similar laws unconstitutional. Supreme Court guidance is needed to provide legal consistency in jurisdictions across the country….
The Supreme Court should strike down this unjust law just as it struck down New Hampshire’s law that forced citizens, including the Maynards, to advertise the state’s preferred message….” (Excerpted from National Review , commentary by Kevin Theriot, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the National Institute of Family Life Advocacy.)
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