• • Supreme Court sides with pro-life pregnancy centers in victory for free speech
• • Trump Admin Stops Justin Trudeau From Using G7 Summit to Promote Abortion

No one would require Alcoholics Anonymous to promote liquor stores. Pro-life clinics deserve the same respect.

The Supreme Court of the U.S. has issued a monumental decision preserving the fundamental constitutional liberty of free speech for all Americans. The decision in NIFLA v. Becerra is a stark rebuke to the state of California's attempt to restrict free speech rights. The Court's decision protects pro-life pregnancy centers and blocks attempts by the government to force citizens to repeat messages with which they fundamentally disagree.  

The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), a national network of 1,450 pro-life centers, filed suit against this law on behalf of its 150 California members. While our motion for a preliminary injunction was rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Court has correctly ruled in favor of NIFLA and declared that the law likely violates the free speech rights of pro-life pregnancy centers.

The right of free speech protected in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution not only includes the right to speak, but also the right to not be compelled by government to repeat a message with which one disagrees and which violates one's conscience. The Court correctly found that the California law clearly offends this principle.

California law

California's AB 775 mandated that pro-life pregnancy centers advertise for state-funded abortion services by posting a large sign in their waiting area. The sign must contain a phone number for center patients to get an abortion. Non-compliance with the law would bring serious fines and penalties that would force most of these pro-life centers to close. 

There are over 150 pro-life pregnancy centers in California (and nearly 3,000 nationwide) providing necessary resources to mothers who are contemplating abortion. Such services empower these mothers to choose life and continue their pregnancies.

Medical services offered by the centers that are licensed medical clinics include ultrasound confirmation of pregnancy, pregnancy diagnosis and STI testing and treatment. Other assistance offered by both medical and non-medical centers include baby clothing, diapers, prenatal vitamins, housing, referrals for medical and legal help, adoptions and other critical services at no cost to pregnant mothers and no cost to the taxpayer.

One service that these life-affirming ministries do not provide, however, is abortion. They are foundationally pro-life and to refer for abortions violates their fundamental values.

First Amendment rights

Perhaps most problematic, this law only applies to pro-life centers that do not provide abortion or abortion referrals. All other agencies that serve the needs of pregnant mothers are largely exempt. And abortion centers are not forced to refer pregnant women for free ultrasounds or adoptions at pro-life centers.

May the government pass a law mandating that Alcoholics Anonymous be required to post a sign advising its participants on where the local liquor store is? May the American Cancer Society be forced by law to promote the sale of cigarettes? Because the Court stopped enforcement of the California law, relief from burdensome speech mandates will extend to all sorts of situations and ensure greater protection for all.

The First Amendment protects five fundamental freedoms that uniquely define the American experience in ordered liberty - freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the freedom to petition one's representatives for a redress of grievances.

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(C-Fam) In the lead-up to this year's G7 summit in Quebec, Canadian officials were explicit: women and children were going to be central, and an essential component of their health and empowerment is abortion. But when the final declarations were released, all language about "reproductive rights" was removed, and, according to Devex, "the U.S. delegation...was responsible for the softer official language."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, following the famous example of Sweden, has characterized his government and its foreign policy as "feminist." He employs quotas to ensure that half his cabinet members are women and imposes regulations on his party to support only pro-abortion policies and candidates.  For the first time, as G7 host, Canada established a Gender Equality Advisory Council which submitted its recommendations to integrate gender into the G7's work. Other inputs included a statement from more than sixty feminists that included a call for an end to the "criminalization or restrictive regulation of abortion."

The Gender Equality Advisory Council also included abortion in its recommendations, which called for the withdrawal of the U.S. Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy (also called the Mexico City Policy), the provision of abortion as a component of humanitarian assistance, and funding for abortion advocacy, and government-subsidized coverage of abortion.

According to the chairman's summaries of the discussions, several leaders called for the inclusion of "reproductive rights" language in the official declarations, but this proved impossible without U.S. agreement.

One member of the council is Katja Iversen, president of Women Deliver, which will host its next conference in Canada next year.  After the conference ended, Iversen and Canadian foreign minister Marie-Claude Bibeau co-authored an editorial framing the formation of the Gender Equality council as the major outcome of the G7, omitting any mention of the official outcome documents.

One of the council's two co-chairs was philanthropist Melinda Gates, whose willingness to attach her name to a document with such an extreme pro-abortion message stands in sharp contrast to her prior insistence that her promotion of family planning would be separate from abortion.  Using the tagline "no controversy," Gates drew criticism from feminist groups for "stigmatizing" abortion. Meanwhile, pro-life groups noted her willingness to partner with and fund family planning organizations that are outspoken abortion proponents. Recently, Gates has also been critical of the U.S. Mexico City Policy.

The last time Canada hosted the G7 (then the G8) was in 2010, where then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched the Muskoka Initiative, a global effort to improve maternal and child health around the world-without reference to abortion. This was criticized by then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who served under President Barack Obama, and Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.  Following elections in both the U.S. and Canada, their administrations' positions on abortion have effectively reversed.

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"Restricting access to abortion," tweets the World Health Organization (WHO), "does not reduce the number of abortions."

Supporters of legalized abortion frequently make this claim. Legalizing abortion doesn't increase the number of abortions, they say. It just makes them safer for women. Likewise, bans or limits on abortion don't prevent abortions from happening. They only make the abortions that happen more dangerous.

The idea that abortion restrictions are incompatible with a high standard of maternal health is demonstrably false. But what about the claim that restrictions are ineffective? Do laws actually work to stop abortion?

Abortion laws are effective

Abortion advocates like WHO point to places that don't permit the abortion and yet (according to often-speculative estimates) have abortion rates similar to those of places with abortion on demand. "Women living under the most restrictive laws ... have abortions at about the same rate as those living where the procedure is available without restriction as to reason," concludes a recent report by the Guttmacher Institute, the abortion industry's primary research organization.

Does this mean that laws don't make a difference?