The Abortion Exception - SCOTUS hears NIFLA vs. Becerra Case

On March 20 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) vs. Becerra, a case that challenges the constitutionality of a 2015 California law that forces “crisis pregnancy centers”—which supply pregnancy-related services to expectant mothers with the aim of persuading them to keep their babies—to provide information, including contact phone numbers, about how to obtain a free or low-cost abortion funded by the state of California.

Furthermore, “unlicensed” pro-life centers that don’t provide on-site medical services but merely counsel pregnant women against abortion and offer material help such as diapers and baby clothes must post at least two signs on their premises, in 48-point type and in as many as thirteen different languages, stating that they are not medical facilities. The same disclaimer rule applies to all their print and digital advertising, which means that the mandatory huge fonts (48-point type is nearly two-thirds of an inch high) and multiple repetitions will effectively crowd out the pro-life message the centers are trying to convey.

The penalties for noncompliance are steep fines. The law is all too typical of deep-blue, abortion-happy California, where local legislators have over the years mandated twenty-five-foot “buffer zones” designed to squelch pro-life protests outside abortion clinics, and law professors have recommended use of the state’s anti-stalking laws to bring criminal charges against the “sidewalk counselors” who try to dissuade pregnant women from going inside.

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