Antiabortion clinics challenge law requiring notification

Gov. Jerry Brown signed the first statewide regulation of “crisis pregnancy centers” into law Friday, Oct. 9, 2015. Clinics throughout California filed lawsuits saying the law violated their freedom of speech and religion. less Gov. Jerry Brown signed the first statewide regulation of “crisis pregnancy centers” into law Friday, Oct. 9, 2015. Clinics throughout California filed lawsuits saying the law violated their freedom of ... more Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Antiabortion clinics challenge law requiring notification 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

It didn’t take long for antiabortion clinics to challenge a California law that would require them to tell prospective clients that the state makes abortion services available.

A day after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the first statewide regulation of “crisis pregnancy centers” into law Friday, two clinics in the Sacramento Valley filed a federal court suit in Sacramento saying the measure violated their freedom of speech and religion. On Tuesday, two more clinics and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, which has 111 affiliates in California, filed a similar suit in San Diego.

Details on services

Crisis pregnancy centers offer free counseling and services to pregnant women, including pregnancy tests and ultrasound examinations, but try to steer them away from abortions. There are about 2,500 centers nationwide with at least 228 of them in California, according to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, AB775.

The measure, introduced by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, is scheduled to take effect in January. It requires state-licensed reproductive health centers, including crisis pregnancy centers that have a doctor on staff, to notify clients of the full range of low-cost or free reproductive services available under state law, including abortion. The notices must list the phone number of the county social service center.

Clinics without a doctor are not licensed by the state and will have to tell clients they are unlicensed.

The lawsuits say the state is violating the First Amendment rights of licensed clinics by requiring them to promote abortion.

The notice required by AB775 would “undermine (the clinics’) pro-life message of love and support which they pursue because of their religious beliefs,” the clinics said in the San Diego suit, filed by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization. The clinics in both cases, and the Family and Life Advocates institute, describe themselves as religious rather than medical organizations.

The Sacramento suit was filed by another conservative nonprofit, the Pacific Justice Institute, on behalf of A Woman’s Friend Pregnancy Resource Clinic in Marysville (Yuba County) and Crisis Pregnancy Center of Northern California in Redding.

Informed decisions

In response, Chiu, the law’s author, said AB775 was intended to make sure that women “have the facts to make informed health decisions and have equal access to comprehensive reproductive health care.” He described the plaintiffs as “antichoice activists providing misleading information in their clinics.”

A federal appeals court ruled last year that New York City could not require crisis pregnancy centers to tell clients that they do not perform abortions, although it could compel them to disclose that they have no doctors on their staff. But in February, a federal judge upheld a false-advertising ordinance in San Francisco that allows local judges to order the centers to post notices saying whether they offer abortions.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko