By Jay Hobbs
In case there was any ambiguity to the intent of California’s so-called “Reproductive FACT Act,” NARAL Pro-Choice America’s state director cleared that up Sunday in The Sacramento Bee.
Amy Everitt’s abortion advocacy state chapter has backed the legislation, which would compel life-affirming pregnancy help centers and medical clinics to post state-specified signage advertising abortion. After sponsoring the bill through the state legislature, Everitt teamed with national president Ilyse Hogue to write an op-ed urging Gov. Jerry Brown to sign the bill into law, which he did the next day.
But she may have been too forthcoming for her own good in Sunday’s paper, where the reporter, Alexei Koseff, pointed out Everitt “dismisses the notion that [the legislation] might infringe on the clinics’ constitutional rights.”
“They are still able to say everything they want to,” Everitt said of community-supported pregnancy centers and medical clinics. “We can’t regulate free speech. If we could we would, but we can’t.”
Everitt went on to say that, while the state cannot directly override a pregnancy center’s right to free speech as protected in the First Amendment, her hope is to send a state-sponsored message directly to clients in a pregnancy center waiting room.
“Run. This is not where you want to be. Run,” Everitt said.
The latest in a litany of attempts at government-compelled speech that were struck down in Baltimore (MD), Montgomery County (MD), Austin (TX), Washington state and New York City, the California “Bully Bill,” as named by its pro-life opponents, would go into effect Jan. 1 unless a judge grants an injunction following a hearing scheduled for Dec. 18.
The law will force 150 local pregnancy help non-profits, including the 74 state-licensed free ultrasound facilities, to give each of its clients the following disclaimer, which includes the phone number of a county social services office where a client could obtain an abortion covered by Medi-Cal.
Article continues: http://www.lifenews.com/2015/12/09/
LifeNews Note: Jay Hobbs writes for PregnancyHelpNews, where this originally appeared.e News: Jay Hobbs
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