Supreme Court agrees to hear anti-abortion challenge to California disclosure law for pregnancy centers

FILE In this April 7, 2017 file photo, the Supreme Court in Washington. — The Supreme Court is intervening in a digital-age privacy dispute between the Trump administration and Microsoft over emails stored abroad. The justices say Monday they will hear the administration's appeal of a lower court ruling in favor of Microsoft. The court held the emails sought in a drug trafficking investigation were beyond the reach of a search warrant because they were kept on a Microsoft server in Ireland.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) — FILE In this April 7, 2017 file photo, the Supreme Court in Washington. — The Supreme Court is intervening in a digital-age privacy dispute between the Trump administration and Microsoft over emails stored abroad. The justices say Monday they will hear the administration's appeal of a lower court ruling in favor of Microsoft. The court held the emails sought in a drug trafficking investigation were beyond the reach of a search warrant because they were kept on a Microsoft server in Ireland. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) FILE In this April 7, 2017 file photo, the Supreme Court in Washington. — The Supreme Court is intervening in a digital-age privacy dispute between the Trump administration and Microsoft over emails stored abroad. The justices say Monday they will hear the administration's appeal of a lower court ruling in favor of Microsoft. The court held the emails sought in a drug trafficking investigation were beyond the reach of a search warrant because they were kept on a Microsoft server in Ireland. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

By Associated Press November 13, 2017 4 min read

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear an anti-abortion group’s free-speech challenge to a California law that requires “crisis pregnancy centers” to notify patients that the state offers subsidies for contraception and abortion.

The challengers say the disclosure law violates the First Amendment because it forces the faith-based pregnancy centers to send a message that conflicts with their aim of encouraging childbirth, not abortion.

It will be the second major case this term in which a conservative, religious-rights plaintiff is challenging a liberal state law on free-speech grounds – and both came from the same lawyers. The Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom sued on behalf of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple and was charged with violating the state’s civil rights law. The justices are due to hear his appeal on Dec. 5.

ADF lawyers also challenged the California disclosure law on behalf of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, which describes itself as “a faith-based, Christian ministry that seeks to glorify God by proclaiming the sanctity of human life, both born and unborn.” The group represents 110 pregnancy centers in California, and it contends the disclosure provisions amount to unconstitutional “compelled speech.”

The key issue, said Michael Farris, ADL’s president, is whether “California can put its thumb on one side” of the scale and require a faith-based center “to promote a pro-abortion message.”