Crisis Pregnancy Centers Win at Supreme Court; California Loses

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday sided with the pro-life community in reversing a lower court ruling that would have forced crisis pregnancy centers to promote abortions.

At issue was a California law, the Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act (FACT Act), that required licensed crisis pregnancy centers to notify women that California offers free or low-cost abortions. The centers also were required to give women a phone number where they could schedule an abortion. Further, the FACT Act required unlicensed crisis pregnancy centers to tell women the centers were not licensed to provide medical services.

Crisis pregnancy centers often are supported by pro-life organizations and churches and offer free counseling, pregnancy tests and ultrasounds to women. They also assist pregnant women financially.  

Crisis pregnancy centers in California sued to overturn the law, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it.

But in a 5-4 ruling by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the justices reversed the Ninth Circuit’s opinion and sent it back to that court “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

“We hold that petitioners are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the FACT Act violates the First Amendment,” Thomas wrote.

The law, he said, raises the question of whether California was…