If the Court holds that the California law is unconstitutional on free-speech grounds, would it not therefore hold that all the red-state laws compelling ob-gyn's and abortion providers to "counsel" their patients with proscribed, anti-choice nonsense that they personally and professionally believe and know to be untrue are likewise unconstitutional on free-speech grounds?
5
It seems like most business and most marketing-free-speech is based on deception and lies - for profit and power. Religions, as unchallengeable as they pretend to be, have been deceiving humankind for millennia. Science is the best way to reveal the truth we currently have.
What services do these pro-life organizations provide to help mother and child once it is brought into a cruel Republican world - with vanishing maternity care, healthcare, living wages, housing, food security, education, etc.? Or do they abandon them at birth to die of starvation, poor health? They are pro-misery organizations trained to lie to bring to life new lost and disadvantaged generations to a crowded planet to suffer, perhaps a lifetime. Referral to a prenatal doctor you can't afford doesn't help. Diapers when you need food or a job, doesn't help much.
"This facility will delay and badger you into keeping your pregnancy until you give birth, regardless of any and all consequences to you" should be posted at the entrance of these faux healthcare facilities. Nifla delays abortions allowing fetuses to become more human before they are aborted - that is cruel.
The Alliance Defending Freedom takes freedoms away of others. I have no problem with Religion preaching and imposing their dogma on willing participants of that faith. Leave the rest of us alone. Nothing reduces abortion more than contraception.
As for trump's knowledge of Nifla, he's only interested in renegotiating it with Mexico & Canada
4
In an abortion case, if a Supreme Court Justice, or any Judge for that matter is opposed to abortion due to their religious beliefs, shouldn't they recuse themselves due to their prejudice?
It is clear to most Americans where the current SCOTUS Justices stand.
When and where is it crossing the line and who decides when it is so?
Are there any honest American Citizens who believe the current SCOTUS is not political?
2
Perhaps it is time for Pro Choice advocates to protest outside of the so called “crisis pregnancy centers.” Give them a taste of their own medicine.
6
Your usually incisive objectivity has lapsed, this time.
I don't mean to defend the Masterpiece Cakeshop proprietor, but I must say I find the following disingenous:
"in my opinion, if someone wants to be able to pick and choose his customers, he should bake for his friends in his own kitchen and stop calling himself a business."
The baker in question does not seek to pick and choose his customers. He told the plaintiffs that he would sell them any of his ready-made cakes. For that matter, he would presumably make them a custom-designed cake for Christmas, a birthday, or some other occasion (though not Halloween or a stag party). Druids and debauchees could surely obtain such things from him as well.
There's no question of picking and choosing customers, here. The issue is whether the artisan (which is exactly what he is; neither an artist nor a mere shopkeeper) can pick and choose the acts of expression to which he will be a party. That's why it isn't an easy case. At least I, for one, continue to puzzle over it.
6
I'm so glad that there are people who will defend to a woman's death the rights of a clump of cells growing inside the woman. And I'm ecstatic that these same humane souls will defend the right of their compatriots to have guns so they can shoot those clumps of cells dead should those clumps of cells become actual people.
4
This is another "patently frivolous" case accepted by SCOTUS to hear. It's not about Freedom of Speech; it's about a Desire to Control Speech/Expression to the Public by businesses open to the public. What's really disconcerting are unnamed members of the Supreme Court who are willing to entertain this nonsense. They are as patently frivolous as the "merits" of this case. Shame on you, all you of you!
Maurice F. Baggiano, Member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court
4
I wonder what will people like the cake master feel when and if they get in a medical emergency and need blood transfusion and the blood comes from a LBGTQ, or minority person they have fought so hard to marginalize
3
Oh, that's their god bestowing them with its blessings. Other humans have nothing to do with it. Something good happens in your life? God did it. Something bad happens? Why is my god angry with me?
3
The role of government in dictating the boundaries of speech or some cases underwriting policies is not easily resolved. Should a baker be obligated to make a cake for Nazi's or a gay baker required to illustrate a church event that promotes traditional marriage? Should there be any restrictions marketing the day after pill in the form of language or advertising? Should abortion clinics be allowed to market on TV? As a non-religious person, religious messages are omnipresent. You can test this by inserting the word Allah every time there is a reference to God and you will step in my shoes. Nonetheless, the boundaries of speech must ultimately be broad or we risk the orthodoxy of the day to rule unchallenged.
Interestingly there are similar rules in effect for Doctors in New York with legal marijuana. Doctors can prescribe product but not enter dispensary’s. Head shops can sell equipment but not describe how to use it properly. It’s a stupid expensive way to operate.
2
"What could be wrong with that?"
Should a detox center be required to post the name and address of the nearest liquor store? Sorry but you do not have a constitutional right to force people to promote your position on abortion. I agree that pregnancy crises centers should be required to make it abundantly clear that they do not provide abortions, but that's it. If you feel that their customers need to be informed about the easiest way to kill their unborn child, then exercise your own constitutional right to stand out front and provide that information yourself.
3
Speech as we know it is often, if not usually, dependent on a medium to manifest itself. In this case, the cake in the medium. To rule in favour of the baker means that there is a medium of expression-a baked good or other customisable food-that is off the table because the baker doesn't like it. I'm uncomfortable with that. Let it be clear, this is not a gay issue. If I'm a baker I wouldn't put a swastika or a gun on a cake.
Where is the customer's right to free speech, then? A wedding cake is always a statement about something, and an integral part of many weddings. I don't see the baker as the one exercising free speech in wielding a pastry bag in service of a couple hundred dollars for a couple of strangers' personal decision. What about billboards? There are thousands with "pro-life" messages. Are all those ad companies pro-life in their beliefs? I have to doubt it. Where does it end, and how many lawsuits will be required to extinguish last medium for the exercise of free speech? Facebook, bus advertising, in-flight magazines, pens, sky writing?
There has been a disturbing trend since at least the tea party craze of businesses declaring their politics, usually right wing. I think that's bad business but it's not illegal to be a bad businessman. However, it creates division, exclusion, and social isolation. That's the purpose, of course. Protecting that power behind a veneer of "free speech" is ultimately destructive of free speech.
1
When gun manufacturers sell their deadly products and someone uses one to commit a crime, the manufacturers disavow any responsibility for the product. Certainly in the right-wing view of things, all responsibility for how the guns are used falls to the purchaser.
Apparently when it comes to cakes-- which are of course far more deadly than guns--these conservative bakers more keenly feel the responsibility for how their products might be used. Heaven forbid that one should be used to cement a lasting and loving union or even just take a reasonable crack at besting the abysmal average longevity of the garden variety heterosexual marriage.
The only logic common to these scenarios is fear.
Appearances aside, our legal system in all of its finery will fully display the utter sham and poverty of its current keepers when it finds a way to keep guns in the streets and cakes out if the hands of gays.
4
This case seems nutty to me. Pregnancy centers are religious anti-abortion clinics. When they get an unsuspecting customer in the door, they go into high gear trashing abortion. There may be some subtlety to what they are doing, but they are not likely to fool anyone for long. What they are upset about is having to post a notice they consider unwelcome. These folks are all over their clients with false sympathy and false information. If they can't draw attention away from a technical-sounding notice on the wall, they can't possibly get their job done successfully.
It seems to me that the pro-abortion advocates offer a pound of deception and they're worried about a tenth of an ounce of the truth. Surely, they have more important things to litigate about.
1
Yes the baker should be allowed to refuse. Just as a band can refuse to hold a planned concert, Or a gay florist should be able to refuse to supply Catholic wedding, or a feminist caterer could refuse to provide food for a bachelor party at a strip club. You cannot complain about companies not having a conscience if you don’t allow them to use them.
1
When you have to rely on deceptive conduct to trick women into coming through your front door, what does that say about you?
Free speech or not, it's deceitful and underhanded. From religious pro-life activists? Who'd have guessed?
1
Wait -what....
It is fraud if a food company puts a picture on their box that doesn't match the product inside... it is illegal for a drug company to make claims that the drug is an effective cure unless it's been scientifically proven.. It is a crime to impersonate a police officer.. or claim you are a lawyer or CPA or physician if you are unlicensed... A school that is not accredited is required to post a disclaimer to state this..
There are plenty of instances in which the public's right to NOT BE LIED TO overrules an individual's freedom of speech....
4
The truth is not always the truth. For instance, there's verifiable scientific facts, then there's spin and propaganda. And true facts often have a democratic bias. Imagine that. Republicans can win only by lying and cheating. And THAT is a fact. Bigly.
3
Forget abortion, this is about truth in advertising and sales.
If you see an ad for a car (free) and the dealer then can only sell you rubber-duckies, the dealer is guilty of false and deceptive advertising practices. This is consumer protection at its simplest.
4
I'll agree with the left that the baker has to bake for people he disagrees with when the same left makes a famous leftist rock musician (e.g. Bruce Springsteen) perform for the Republican National Convention if the GOP tries to hire him.
2
A totally bogus analogy.
No one is suggesting that the baker actually had to attend the Wedding. He just needed to sell them a cake just like he would to any other customers who walked through his door.
I pretty certain that if the entire Republican National Convention bought tickets to attend a Springsteen concert they would be welcome to attend and he would perform for them just like he performs for any other paying customer who walks through his door.
There, I hope that makes it clearer for you.
3
One of the fallacies of the defendants argument concerns the nature of what abortion is. It may (currently) be a constitutionally protected right and a choice, but that does not make it medical care. Pregnancy is not a disease and aborting a healthy baby being carried by a healthy mother (the vast majority of abortions) is not medical care.
The other fallacy is the author's premise that crisis pregnancy centers are deceiving women. How stupid do you think women are? The vast majority of women go to crisis pregnancy centers as an alternative to abortion, which is promoted ubiquitously in our society, especially California. Forcing religiously-based pregnancy centers to promote abortion is simply unnecessary and cruel. That is the plain purpose of the California law that requires it.
And by the way, the defendant in the case, CA Attorney General Xavier Becerra, is zealously persecuting David Daleiden for exercising his right to speak the truth about Planned Parenthood. The truth Daleiden is telling appears to be illegal in the Golden State.
Oh boy... you need to rethink this argument. Many pregnancies are unintended and can kill the mother. Yet anti abortion foes want to ban them all no matter what. Huge difference, bigger effect.
4
We could also apply the doctrine of necessities to this argument.
And since the Courts have rules that abortions CAN be regulated except when the health of the mother is at risk, bortions are NOT. about a necessity, but about a convenience.
Expanding the subject only slightly, for the life of me, I cannot see the reasoning behind the objections to requiring the performing physician in an abortion procedure to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
Why wouldn't a physician, other than for liability reasons, want to continue to care for his injured patient?
1
Hogwash. Pregnancy is not an illness, it's a condition with many obvious health effects and many significant health risks requiring competent monitoring, guidance, and active care, at the end if not sooner. There's a medical specialty devoted to it, obstetrics, and abortion and delivery at any point are both medical procedures. Your distinctions are spurious and deceptive.
Crisis pregnancy centers make every effort to keep from pregnant women information that would enable them to explore and, if they choose, exercise their right to have an abortion. That's deception, as is listing themselves in the phone book under "abortion."
No one is "promoting" abortion; that's hysterical nonsense. You just think permitting abortion -- as a real option, that is, as the law requires -- is the same thing as promoting it.
Your last paragraph is a red herring.
4
How about this?
Any professional who knowingly or unknowingly does not give a client full and accurate information becomes PERSONALLY liable for any damages the client incurs as a result.
You may have a constitutionally guaranteed right to lie, but you have no constitutional right to be insulated from the consequences of telling that lie.
1
Sadly I can foresee a time in the near future when an anti-abortion religious kook kills a doctor who performs abortions and claims he is only using his religion freedom and free speech rights --using the argument that his action is legal because he is using his rights via non-verbal communication.
I only more saddened that so called conservative justices use "original ism" to completely subvert the meanings as proposed by Madison and Jefferson. One can find nothing in their writings -starting with Virginia's Statutes for Religious Freedom to support these justices.
3
Statistically only American evangelical Christians believe facts and data should be abrogated to ram their religious dogma down our throats. This is a minority view that has been given far more weight in government than it deserves. Yet another unintended consequence of Citizen's United.
3
Let's face it. The right-wing, activist Supreme Court, which has made corporations people with religious rights and made money speech, is now a full-fledged political operation for the Republican Party. Republicans stole a seat so Trump could install (with a changing of the rules) a young Scalia clone, and Republicans pray for a couple more chances to totally politicize the Court for decades by installing more Scalia Clones. The chance to correct their infamy was lost when Donald Trump was elected, with the help of the Russians, Jim Comey, and those "progressives" who just couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton. Republicans are also installing huge numbers of unqualified political operatives in the lower courts. We can no longer count on the courts to be neutral in deciding cases. I fear that with courts allowing more and more voter suppression by Republicans, Russian interference, "progressives" who undermine the Democratic message as not progressive enough, Democrats conducting witch hunts of their own, 1/3 of the country in an alternative universe of the right-wing propaganda machine, the 1% taking all the wealth created in the country, gerrymandering by Republicans, the electoral college, younger people who get their "news" from non-journalistic sources like Facebook and twitter, we are doomed. I won't be around for the worst of it, but I mourn for my children and the rest of the younger people.
3
Simple. ?
If those who believe life begins at conception are correct; they are right.
If those who believe life begins at birth are correct; they are right.
It's important to remember that this case only affects poor women's choices. Women with money and good health insurance plans simply go to their physician's office, discuss options, and schedule a procedure, if one is requested. No notices are posted in the office, no scripts are read. The first amendment has nothing to do with it. That's only for poor women.
3
And by the way, may God bless Linda Greenfield today and every day for the rest of her life.
There should be a category of speech that can be regulated or controlled. Fraud would not be a crime if there were no such category. If a doctor knew you had diabetes and he told you that you did not have it, should that be protected by first amendment rights? If a crisis center deliberately conceals from its clients the fact that there are other forms of service available which include licensed practitioners isn't that the same as the doctor denying diabetes. Imagine that the client is pre-eclamptic and doesn't know of it. In this case isn't concealing the availability of other sources similar to denying diabetes?
I'd love to see a constitutional amendment that only individuals are covered under the bill of rights. corporations, churches, unions, political parties should all have rights per government resolutions and these things should not go back to the Constitution.
These organizations are not regulated by the state. They do not receive any state funds. The state has no business prescribing speech. It is a clear violation of the first amendment. In reality, progressives do not like the counseling going on at these offices. Funny how progressives are losing their liberal beliefs.
From what I read here, the California courts should have enforceable laws that identify "practicing medicine without a license" for the unlicensed offices, and (to earn a medical license to practice in California) laws that requires practicing medical personnel to provide to patients any state laws that apply to any specific medical advice or treatment under consideration between practitioner and patient. Anything less for the medical practitioner is sanctimonious rubbish. This is commonly done for financial issues such as insurance, so why not for health decisions?
1
Can someone explain to me how insistence that a woman carry an unwanted embryo or viable fetus to term, despite the associated pre-natal duties, risk of death during childbirth, anguish of giving a child up for adoption, or the trials and tribulations associated with keeping an unwanted child does not violate the 13th Amendment? Sounds like involuntary servitude to me.
4
if the courts go on record agreeing that lying is protected speech, where does one define the limits, if any, on this new found right to protected lying?
is all deception and blatant lying then protected?
1
Can we forget all the logical arguments on both sides here? To this court logic doesn't matter.
What could their reasoning be to overturn CA's FACT law while upholding other states' ability to force health care providers to provide misleading 'counseling' and other misinformation to potential abortion consumers? However they can contort themselves to achieve both if possible will be the way they frame their 'ruling'.
In the Bible there is a oft repeating claim that, 'the truth will set one free'. Indeed, truth about complicated issues like dealing with a pregnancy could lead someone to choose to terminate it, while misleading people to make their choosing to terminate much less likely would serve the aims of the agencies. In this case not allowing people freedom to choose is considered the morally best way to go. Truly religious people who are not even close to spiritually enlightened really do feel that freedom as our culture offers to it's citizens is a road to sin and to loss of eternal life, so it's potentially a ruinous thing unless severely controlled by adherence to religious doctrines. Nobody should be surprised that most religious organizations fear truths that are not lifted whole from their sacred texts.
So "The Ninth Circuit viewed the licensed-clinic notice requirement as a regulation of 'professional speech,' which it said deserved less robust protection than some other kinds of speech." Pharmacy is a profession, as is the practice of medicine. Regulation can equally forbid, permit or require something. So if the Vermont legislature cannot forbid pharmacists to convey prescription information to drug manufacturers, how can the California legislature require physicians in a licensed clinic to present information of its choosing to their patients?
It already does, like they have to post their license. It's very hard to see how requiring a notice of patients' rights violates anyone else's rights.
2
One of the signal elements of "professional speech" is that it is only "the professional" that can utter it.
It certainly seems illogical for a legislature, at any level, to interfere with such speech for the basic reason that they are NOT QUALIFIED to opine on the subject.
Now, certainly the state can be guided by professionals in their deliberations, but they are still NOT QUALIFIED to choose between competing professional views on any subject.
Ms. Greenhouse is again arguing that the Courts should put the their thumbs on the scale without understanding the difference between "political" choices and "professional" ones.
1
If it's permissible for a legislature to require a provider to recite a text intended to discourage abortion, how can you even bother to make such an argument?
Well, sorry, but that's pretty darn silly. Professionals are allowed to lie about many things because their clients sign pieces of paper saying they're allowed to lie. There's no reason any state in the United States has to sign the same piece of paper.
Your point, bob, is well taken.
But, here is my response:
I don't think that the government has that right. So, I remain consistent. These are areas where the public's interests do not rise to the point of setting aside the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
So
Two issues. The first is that any organization that is open to the public is required to follow anti-discrimination laws, health regulations, privacy regulations, and safety regulations, as well as laws against fraud. In short, a business does not have the right to misleading speech. If a business sets itself up as a counseling service to discuss all available options, and is actually a bait and switch religious outfit, then this is fraud.
The other issue is a consumer and women's rights issue. All women deserve to know and be provided with all reproductive and pregnancy care options. Denying women basic bodily autonomy or access to health care is a violation of human rights. Women deserve to know that, in California (and in my state), they don't have to worry about paying for good care. They don't have to worry about access to services. They can choose to dedicate 38 weeks of their lives to the parasite inside them, and even if they don't want the child to know that the state will help them, or not, and then the state will help them too. Only in this is the liberty of the ONLY ACTUAL PEOPLE IN THIS CASE, women, protected.
12
People who combine a high regard for the Constitution and a high regard for themselves and their own views believe that the Constitution must necessarily sustain whatever their views are.
7
These are two separate cases, because they involve two separate statements.
The message in unlicensed centers is a simple consumer-protection device - a way of making sure the public knows that a place that a significant percentage of people MIGHT believe is licensed ISN'T licensed. (Facts on that possibility could be introduced at trial.)
The licensed clinic rule is different. It's like requiring a bookstore to post a notice reminding customers that there's a free library in town, or that Guttenberg has texts for free on line, or whatever. Just because it's true doesn't mean the state can make someone say it. Was John McCain required to say at every campaign stop that Barack Obama was born in the USA?
BTW, the cake case is hard, too. "Artist" is a profession. Artists accept commissions. They may not operate out of a storefront, but they COMPOSE and CRAFT for a living. Is a wedding cakes a work of art or a "simple" commodity that cannot be withheld from public consumption out of distaste for the person offering to buy it?
The wedding cake issue is hard because this piece of art is ABOUT something. Can a comic be compelled to write a toast for this wedding regardless of his views on same-sex marriage? The cake SAYS something about the event. What happens when the cake displeases, and the couple demands a refund because the artist's "heart wasn't in it?" Because it wasn't.
4
So the cake is an important "artistic" expression to the baker but not a vital service denied to a would-be buyer?
You can't have your cake and eat it too!
1
So, regarding there being no standard for “professional speech” needing to have some factual basis...when an airline pilot goes for training, and the instructor—certified and licensed by the FAA, a government agency—tells the pilot something that, while technically true is obviously stupid (“I recommend you shut down both engines in flight because it’s a great way to save fuel,”) the plaintiff’s position is that the FAA cannot sanction that instructor in any way, including suspending his license? Because, hey, the government can’t compel any speech, including “professional” speech? One could contrive absurd examples in any profession, including medicine. It seems the plaintiffs want to open the door to this kind of absurdity. The 1A has always had limits, and a basically defensible element of truth should be a requirement for, well, for everybody, but especially for those with power over others. I mean it’s gotta pass the laugh test, and many of these restrictions on reproductive choice simply don’t. Enough.
5
What if a state mandated churches to post similarly? Inform, among other things, that J was most likely born out of wedlock, causing Mary to spin a tale based on a fictional character as basis for claiming she was still a virgin despite? That if she had had access to low-cost pregnancy counseling and abortion, Christianity wouldn’t have come to being? Or that advice received during confessions was inferior to advice from a lawyer, and that the free/low-cost legal help was available from the government?
You get my point. It’s absurd. Listen, California wants to meddle and advertise abortion services on the back of these pregnancy centers. Never mind that Medi Cal drains almost $40 billion in federal funds, never mind also, that California alone gobbles up over 15% of entire nationwide Medicaid budget.
But SCOTUS needn’t get into all that. Compelled advertising of State policy, no matter how distorted, just ain’t legal. Sorry.
5
I enjoyed your analogy even if I don't agree with your point.
If the placard in question is considered advertising, can/should it be restricted as any other advertising is? Does it matter that the advertiser is a government? Wouldn't that then preclude notices about the availability of free vaccinations for eligible people, or or low cost golf lessons at the nearby park? A city parks department could put such a sign on the bulletin board at the local golf club. After all, it might increase business for the club to have newly minted golfers. Would it be different if the lessons were sponsored by a non-profit parks supporters group working to improve the parks? Anyway, state policy is advertised all. the. time. Would you prevent the state from compelling signs that say "no alcohol will be served to minors"?
While those aren't "compelled" speech I don't see much practical difference and practicalities are important, more so than technicalities. To employ a familiar but, in this case, awkward analogy, a lot of babies have been thrown out with the bath water by US legal culture by elevating small technicalities blown out of proportion for purely political ends.
PS: I can imagine a world (the US) in which a sign such as you suggest will be required to be posted in all mosques.
2
@stevenz
Thank you. The main justification California makes, is that these clinics generate their “business” from misleading advertising. That’s where correction is needed. We have laws against misleading advertisements. I don’t think anyone will take issue if California directed her efforts to correct misleading advertising where it exists. Including mandating that advertisements indicate their licensing and professional biases against abortion. This case is about misleading speech, not free speech. Sounds easy.
1
First, it's sad that none of our presidents thought to appoint Linda Greenhouse to the Supreme Court.
The doctrine that there can be no compelled speech is very dangerous in areas involving commerce or health. Taken to an extreme, it would mean that cigarette manufacturers cannot be compelled to warn against cancer. Or that manufacturers need not tell truthfully what is in the food they sell. Absurd? Perhaps, but how different are such cases than the one that the court will hear?
Perhaps one weakness in the California statute is that all clinics (including those that provide abortion and family-planning services) are not required to post the same sign. But that should be a distinction without a difference.
3
What if the notice required by California law also contained a sentence at the end saying something like *This information is provided by the California State Dept. of Health and posted here to comply with regulation xx.nn*
Then ought to be clear that the *speaker* is not the clinic, but an agency of the state of California.
11
The author seems to suggest that every statement of fact can be clearly and simply demarcated into the buckets of truth and untruth, when in fact moral disagreements often arise from the fact that different parties find different "facts" salient: the world is multifariously describable and of the many ways to look at how things are, some correspond more closely to our values. But *that* shouldn't make us think that they are therefore more accurate (than those which do not correspond to our biases)!
The author should also be careful about applying a "slippery slope" argument (in this article) to exclude the possibility of denying service to a customer. Such techniques often prove "too much" and can be aptly modified to make the contrary point. The problem giving rise to the use of these sorts of arguments is exactly that the object of disagreement is a matter of our values, as opposed to a (logical) consequence of what we value, so we have little by way of "public" and persuasive reasons in order to hash out those disagreements.
Ultimately, one should be careful about making appeals to Truth to undergird the legitimacy of a position. The meaning of `truth' (and of things generally) arises out of its coherent role in the shared network of human interaction and linguistic participation. If there's a topic which causes vehement global disagreement, that may be good indication that unqualified truth is not a notion which appropriately & immediately describes a side.
3
What balderdash. No one doubts the truth of the contents of the required signs -- patients' rights under the law, a phone #, if a facility is not licensed, etc. -- the "centers" just don't want their campaign to use deception to subvert women's right to choose an abortion exposed by the state. The rest of your argument was settled in 1964. Please.
2
When information's primary label is "truth", we should be very suspicious. There is no piece of information that is both valid and relevant based merely on whether or not it's true.
In fact, when making a list of inappropriate things you shouldn't say, it's mostly things that are true. The question should not be regarding whether or not these statements are true, but "are they are appropriate and reasonable?"
2
I saw a handful of demonstrators in front of a Planned Parenthood in my upper-middle-class Californian neighborhood. They held up religious icons and chanted some word salad which I took to be a prayer. Pedestrians gave them a wide berth. But what happened next was that this Planned Parenthood was closed and a glossy ‘Real Solutions Pregnancy Center” opened across the road. I am pretty sure that it does not offer the only real solution that an unwanted pregnancy requires, which is abortion. I much preferred those wild-eyed protesters with their pictures of the Virgin Mary. At least, they were honest about their agenda. The pro-life movement is theocracy in action. The California law merely asks these “counseling facilities’ to be upfront about what they are: churches of the new heretical religion of fetus-worship rather than legitimate medical facilities.
16
"...The only real solution that an un-wanted pregnancy requires..."
Why not Adoption rather than Abortion ?
1
Do the kind people at the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NILFA) offer free contraception to young women wishing to avoid an unwanted pregnancy? Nope, I checked myself on their web site. So they're really not interested in reducing the number of abortions, they're just interested in pressuring young, unwed women into having babies when they're not ready. Or worse, marrying the careless slob who knocked them up.
I'm a Pro-Life liberal, raised Catholic, and this kind of stuff drives me nuts. If conservatives and religious organizations really wanted to end abortion, they would have comprehensive, fact-based sex ed. in every school, starting at a young age. They would have all forms of contraception available for free, with no parental consent, no questions asked, no restrictions, and no run-around.
But, premarital sex and contraception are sins, right? I would think the flat-out murder (as defined by Christians) happening in abortion clinics would be a bigger concern than contraception, which hurts no one. Kids are going to have sex, unmarried women are going to get pregnant. Choose the lesser of two evils. But this paradox has kept the religious right on the wrong side of the contraception argument for too long. They deny the most at-risk women birth control, and then they're shocked when people have abortions.
Education and contraception could reduce the number of abortions to a very low number, but they won't do it. That's the problem.
21
I'm sympathetic to your points, but certainly not all women who seek abortions are unmarried or wayward; do some research and you'll find many, if not, most, are married and already have children, and just don't want, or can't take care of, another kid. yiu have to grt ivef confounding need for abortion with sinful sex.
and, btw, sex itself is not a sin unless you get into the weeds of forcing it on the unwilling or minors.
These clinics lure women in by false advertising. Chances are they will hear a whole bunch of lies if they stay. The law takes no position on that speech. It just lets women know that if they have come there for professional medical care they aren't going to get it at this clinic. They can choose to stay and listen to the clinic workers or not.
This seems to me far different from the cases where the states actually give doctors and pregnancy care workers scripts to read.That is government dictating speech.
7
This 'compelled speech' argument could just as well apply to nutrition labels on food. So does a food producer's First Amendment rights allow them to withhold information about their products, lie about ingredients, or mislead consumers about the properties of the food?
How do we survive in a society where we can't distinguish between fact and fiction because as far as the interpretation of our constitution is concerned, there is no distinction?
15
The arguments can be imagined that an entity such as the plaintiffs might make is their right to free speech is valid from their beliefs, much like creation theorists might be entitled to. Facts don't require your beliefs to be true, as the tee shirt saying goes.
The difference between creation theorists and the plaintiffs, however, is vast compared to any claims for religious free speech. Someone telling me that men and dinosaurs co-existed or that the earth is 5,000 years old does not represent medical advice or even emotional counseling. So agencies can certainly have protected speech to espouse their views, religious or otherwise, but must clearly do so without the guise of medical authority.
One can hope that the justices will understand that free speech cannot automatically become alternative facts outside the reach of regulations. For example, if I wanted to start an airline and told passengers that I believe we can fly in formation without an airplane, not many would quibble with prohibiting that. Why, then, does it become ok for the plaintiffs to be allowed to be deceptive in what they have to say?
Simply put, the religious views about abortion. While I can imagine the arguments, I can just as easily imagine the votes. Like guns, abortion seems to be inviolate no matter the facts.
The Constitution says you can believe anything you want. But, you can not force others to believe as you do. ALL religion is protected, including non belief in any. The Federal Government is the entity that is supposed to keep religions from lying about each other in attempts to get them kicked out (both beliefs & people). Since the anti abortion faction prefers to lie to women rather than tell them the truth & let them make their own decisions, no organization of theirs (fake medical offices let’s say) should be allowed to stay open in ANY state. No protesters should be allowed outside any medical facility that performs abortions on women who have made that LEGAL choice. Not 10 feet, not a football field, NO protesters. If protesters are found they should be tried in Federal Court, on a Federal Charge of trying to cause physical damage to a human being (having a LEGAL abortion must be done quickly, that’s the only evidence needed to the charge & a finding of guilty). The sentence should be a finding of amoral character, the removal of all children under 21 in their care, confiscation of all assets (to be put in the name of said children), & life imprisonment in the worst prison in their state. No visitors, total isolation. All food to be totally vegetarian, no fat, oils, sugars of any kind. Just unflavored tofu & boiled greens, with the water from the greens their only liquid. Don’t like it? Go on a hunger strike, which the law should say can’t be stopped. Die. Your choice.
2
I'd give the "public programs" notice a strong maybe. It's not too far removed from enforced advertising, but it's only noting that the services are available, not encouraging anyone to use them. I see nothing at all wrong with the "not licensed" notice. That's a public health issue. Nobody should be able to pass themselves off as a medical provider if they aren't one. That said, I could live with this if it means that all those required statements (many of which are chock full of misleading or simply wrong information) prior to receiving abortions go as well.
1
Hands down the best writer in the NYT. The subject matter was depressing, but the writing was terrific. A great read.
4
Yes it was a story. Not an objective news report, but a story meant to persuade you. Ms. Greenhouse is acting as an advocate, not a journalist. There is a huge difference that is obviously lost on many readers based upon their comments.
2
Shamrock, Linda Greenhouse is a lawyer. She is giving her perspective on this issue like a lawyer arguing her case. This is much like Paul Krugman, who is a Nobel Prize winning economist giving his views on what he believes to be good economic policy. They are experts in their fields, rendering their opinions.
I have no idea why you say this is "obviously" lost on many commenters. We all understand this, and we all have our own opinions.
1
Ms. Geenhouse's law degree is but a few, short years old.
That doesn't make her an expert on the subject.
How do lawsuits like this even get into any courtroom, much less the supreme court? There are dozens of federal and state laws requiring disclosures and warnings on hundreds of items, businesses, and buildings. How is this any different from, say, a cigarette company complaining that the warning labels on cig packages are a restriction of their free speech to claim (without any proof) that cigarettes are harmless? Trick question: it's not.
State or federal government has the long-established right to require notices and warnings for the public wellbeing. End of story.
7
Isn't the real problem/confusion here the framing of the question as a First Amendment free speech issue? This should be seen for what it really is--a regulatory requirement akin to the many notices that state and federal governments mandate as matters of public health, worker safety, environmental protection, etc. Employers are required to post notices relating to working conditions at their places of employment; cigarette manufacturers must post warnings on their products and in their advertising; drug companies must place cautions in their packaging and ads. Are all of these health and safety pronouncements challengeable on "free speech" grounds by those who would prefer that the public remain ignorant of consequences? California is simply following these examples--requiring places that purport to offer pregnancy counseling to post signs that provide full disclosure to prospective "patients" about the nature and limitations of the services on offer.
7
Perhaps if men seeking Viagra or other similar drugs were required to undergo a 24-hour wait period, two separate doctor visits, and receive a spouse's approval before obtaining a prescription, I would find something in this abortion-related free speech argument valid. Once again, religion is seeking to control women and their bodies. This so-called pro-life position is nothing of the kind. After all, when has religion ever attempted to control a man's reproductive choice? Is Viagra limited to married men under a certain age who are physically capable of raising a child to age 18? Enough.
30
Your comments are spot on! Thank you for your contribution...as we say down here in the South...these religious zealots are NOT “pro choice”...they are anti-choice. We know a thing or two about religious zealots down here...
3
A very informative opinion piece, thank you. It mentions that, each year, appx. 350,000 women are simply unfamiliar with the CA state-provided pregnancy services they are entitled to.
Regardless of the outcome of this case, and I hope the SCOTUS doesn't countenance the inherent deceptions of these "pregnancy centers" as protected by the FA, why not require all these centers to post the availability of these state services? While a woman is weighing her options she should still have access to good medical care, both for her sake and the baby's.
Seems to me that the State of CA, apart from this case, needs to do a better job of informing women that prenatal care is there for them, no matter their ultimate decision as to the pregnancy.
Do facts have nothing to do with the law? What about "truth in advertising" laws? Are they on the way out?
4
And the theocrats march on towards their goal of a fully hypocritical christianity in the model of Scientology. What would Jesus do?
27
Tell me, those of you who are anti abortion: If you believe the soul enters the body at conception, then lives in darkness for around 9 months in the HOPE of being born here, then either dies before or just after birth, why would God do that to any of His children? Most pregnancies don’t come to term, even now, studies are finding out. Most terminate naturally not long after conception. You believe in one chance at life. God knows all you believe, He knows when a pregnancy is going to terminate just after conception, or a few weeks or months down the road. Each soul is a unique person, whom He LOVES, He doesn’t waste them that way. But, by your beliefs you would & do. Just the modern Baptist (now Southern Baptist, the split was because of this one belief) belief of infant damnation. Every conception when ended naturally before or after birth, or by abortion, the soul of that innocent child, goes straight to h e l l for eternity.
My Grandfather (born 1880) was raised Baptist (before the split), in a time when a young person always believed what his/her parents told him/her. So, my Grandfather believed. His father wanted him to be a minister, sent him to Bowdoin. Then he went to medical school, not seminary, He couldn’t not believe, like young people today. But, he could work his hardest all his life to keep just one child from h e l l. When a child is born unwanted, he/she is born into h e l l. You anti abortionists believe better in h e l l, than in the Father’s arms.
1
Why not give an un-wanted child up for Adoption ?
1
This is another case of right wing/religious fanatics finding relief for their lies and abuse. What is is. It may be another 5-10 years before we get jurists that slams this door close. Putting a bunch on Catholics on the court has twisted this thinking, sorry to say. Pray for the Dems to win the senate in 2018, Moore losing is one of my hopes....
11
Putting a lot of Catholics on the Court? Really, if that’s not bigotry, tell me what is?
1
The court got out of religious equity long ago. How, indeed, did we end up with 5 or 6 catholics there?!
1
Pity the religious conservatives who have thrown in with Donald J. Trump. A mere glance at his own life record -- three wives, adultery, five children with three different mothers, multiple accusations of sexual harassment, and bigotry and racism on proud display -- should be enough to establish his lack of "Christian values." Talk about a deal with the devil. Wow.
29
I agree, although the authentic Christian thing to do would be to love and accept all, including the Donald. Certainly the worst hypocrisy to accept the D's behavior and condemn the behavior of some other people just because they are not in your tribe. Simple faith in god would alleviate the fears of this Christian demographic in America that always need to be controlling others to feel in control of their own lives. Either god's in control or not; it makes no sense to force it in either case - or constantly stress. Rude of them but also plain sad.
most white women voted for these restrictions.
5
Most white women who voted.
Hmmm. If the Alliance Defending Freedom wins in this instance...doesn't that also mean that the rational underpinning laws that mandate anti-abortion counseling etc. also fall? Sauce for the goose.
11
The two cases Greenhouse references aren't even mainly about the First Amendment. Instead, these cases really are reflective of liberal judicial activisim - the idea that Judges should be legislators conjuring new law based on what they believe is right and fair. But that's not the job of judges.
Start with the case re disclosure in right-wing counseling offices for pregnant women. "The Supreme Court has approached the question of whether there is such a First Amendment category as “professional speech,” but hasn’t yet developed a coherent theory." If you conduct a word search in the Constitution, the term "professional speech" does not appear. Yet, liberal Justices want to create the idea in order to weaken what would otherwise be protected speech.
It's a similar story regarding the baker refusing to serve the gay couple. Certainly, the couple deserves sympathy. But we already went down this road of protecting CERTAIN customers of businesses the deal with the public in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. These businesses were referred in the legislation as "public accommodations" such as restaurants and schools. The baker shop certainly seems to be included in this definition. However, the prohibition against discrimination only referenced race, gender, ethnicity or religious affiliation - NOT sexual orientation.
If liberals want laws changed, they should petition their legislators - not ask Judges to usurp that role.
5
@Princeton 2015
Your argument regarding the baker failed in the courts already. Title VII refers to "sex," not merely gender, and it has been determined that if a woman can marry a man, denying a man the right to marry a man is unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex. This is why gay marriage is legal.
It's not a big leap to conclude that the same applies to access to public accommodation. This is why the baker's lawyers took the first amendment approach. It's all they had left.
It is often the case that legislation is ignored by partisans until the courts ratify it. That's why we have courts and why they have the power of judicial review.
3
That's why Republicans are packing the courts with incompetent party apparatchiks.
4
You might want to review which law the Mastrpiece Bakery case is challenging as an unconstitutional infringement of its First Amendment rights.
It is NOT the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
It is in fact a Colorado law that prohibits, among other things, discrimination in public accomodations on the basis of sexual orientation.
When you make a smug, self-assured argument not based on the facts, you just make yourself look silly.
4
The basic tension is whether entities are entitled to lie on behalf of potential zygotes or pre-viable fetuses (or some entities' concept that they speak for them) versus the state's interest on behalf of the general public to compel businesses to tell the whole truth about matters of health. Unfortunately, I think I know how the Supreme Court, and its illegitimately derived conservative majority, will rule.
11
Michael,
The Constitution says the President may nominate.
It does not mandate that the Senate Confirm or even hold hearings.
1
Thank you, Cassandra. I wasn't aware that Mitch McConnell had kept to the standard SCOTUS nominating protocol in the Senate where qualified candidates at least meet with all Senate Judiciary committee members, get a hearing, and get a vote. You must be so proud of your new justice, Gorsuch! Too bad he and McConnell have no integrity.
I'll bet Trump will "bigly" butt in,
He'''ll argue that he's against Sin,
Not Logic nor Law,
With firmly set jaw,
But only to get one more Win!
13
Was there a finding by the legislature that a significant number of these crisis centers mimicked medical clinics? If so, a sign calling attention to the fact that they are not is warranted. I think this is a public health matter, not a free speech matter.
5
The Supreme Court will decide this case based on prejudice shored up by specious legal arguments. The idea of the Court as a venue for teasing out distinctions and clarifying issues is a thing of the past, although some of the justices do attempt it. Whether they dominate the decision only time will tell.
6
The state compels one to tell the truth in court, but apparently the truth doesn’t matter when it comes to the health of a human being. Evangelicals—the majority of these “clinics” are run by evangelicals—have no desire for truth, just look at who they elected “president.” Sad. Very sad. These people are pro-fetus, not pro-life. Don’t be fooled.
31
I find that I am spending too much time groanng about the latest political outrage. When I read this careful and depressing story about laws being turned upside down - as far as women's health is concerned. I thought of Murphy's Law and all became clear: whatever can go wrong, will. Now I can go work on November 2018,
9
I'm so thankful for the clarity this Op-Ed piece is able to provide. Ms. Greenhouse has become my favorite writer at NYT.
17
It’s an opinion piece meant to persuade you. Have you read the opposing sides brief? You might want to before making a decision. This was not a news article.
3
It is myopic at best to believe that abortion isn't socio economic. Do rich pregnant women seeking an abortion have to get counseling? Not a chance. If abortion were illegal, would it matter to them? Nope. They would be able to afford the procedure, and would have it done without falsehood lecture.
Do wealthy women have access to sex ed and birth control when other women in America do not? Yes.
Lying to the middle class and underserved is not the American way, nor is it humane.
18
Gorsuch was anti-constitutionally thrust on to the Supreme Court.
Therefore, all 5-4 decisions with Gorsuch in the majority utterly lack legal authority and are unworthy of obedience or even deference.
Now that it is an appendage of the Russian-Republican Party, the U.S. Supreme Court has no jurisprudential stature apart from cultural inertia.
13
Been There,
Please show me where, in the Constitution,
the Senate was mandated to hold a hearing
on any Supreme Court Nominees ?
1
Yeah, if we had laws about Senators acting in the interest of nation instead of party, Sen. Mitch would be wearing stripes in prison somewhere.
I have an idea: why not allow bakers the right to refuse to make gay wedding cakes--but ONLY if they can refer the service to another bakery they know that WILL do it at roughly the same cost and the same quality? Would that work all the way around? Seriously.
1
It won't stop at cakes. Suddenly you'll have fancy bed-and-breakfast places that will refuse rooms because they morally object to [insert bias here] under "their roof". Who gets to consider themself so important that their selling something becomes some kind of sacred act? Jesus was right in chasing the money-lenders from the temple, now we have groups trying to push the church into the land of commerce.
Back when the Phillips thing started, he'd denied service to more than just one couple. When he was ruled against by the state, he made the responsible decision that protected his moral view and avoided discrimination: he stopped selling wedding cakes.
But pressure groups now have him as some kind of hovering angel over every reception (not even the wedding service, he's catering a party) but because he makes fancy cakes, his religion is supposed to take precedence over civil society. Phillips wasn't forced to marry a man, and he didn't officiate at the wedding (which was in Massachusetts, only the reception was in Colorado, where he makes cake).
I've seen genuine artists at work with construction equipment, raising building as well as knocking them down. Where does "artistry" stop in situations like this?
11
Thomas Paine is no doubt rolling in his grave. We've been descending a Carrollian rabbit hole into an Orwellian tea party for some time now and each day it feels more like we're Slim Pickens riding that nuke in "Dr. Strangelove". Ironically our current (putative) leader is the most like mad king George III since we revolted against his revolting reign. I think it's high time we institute a 3 day waiting period and mandatory mental exam for anyone running for office, remove all exemptions and privileges afforded religious organizations, and demand clean, purpose oriented bills in all legislatures, forbidding riders and amendments that don't bear on the central specificity of that law. It may take another armed revolution to accomplish all this but it seems we may be on that road anyway. We are not obliged to follow as the majority and leadership have a schizoid break.
6
Linda Greenhouse says: "in my opinion, if someone wants to be able to pick and choose his customers, he should bake for his friends in his own kitchen and stop calling himself a business."
True, that is dicta in a column on a related topic. But think about where that principle leads. Greenhouse is saying that you must check your religion at the entrance to the marketplace. Apart from the question of why the free exercise clause does not apply to commerce, one of the (intended?) effects of Greenhouse's rule will be to make it difficult or impossible for people with strong religious convictions to run businesses.
Take the case of the Green family who own the Hobby Lobby retail business. Greenhouse would have forced them to pay for their employees to do what the Greens believe is murder, or alternatively to pay approaching $ 1/2 billion in fines. In other words, under ACA would have put the Greens out of business because of their religion.
I am a complete unbeliever, but I can see this is wrong. How tragic that yesterday's fighters against bigotry have become today's bigots. This really is a test of character for Ms. Greenhouse and others like her. Is their commitment to tolerance purely instrumental, cynical and opportunistic -- simply a means to advance the cause of their tribe, say, women or gays? Judging from Greenhouse's contemptuous disregard for the rights of people with religious beliefs, I conclude this is just politics by other means for her.
3
Ian Maitland,
You have put your finger right on the Constitutional Button.
Modern Day Progressives think they, and they alone, should
decide what is moral and what is not - for every single one of us.
2
So where's the line? You can rationalize any kind of behavior, including discrimination, by reference to "religious beliefs." If the fraud practiced on vulnerable women by the anti-abortionists reported on here is any example, they're already checking at least some of their religious beliefs at the entrance to the marketplace. Caveat emptor indeed.
Women are not any kind of "tribe," what baloney. It's not intolerance or bigotry to insist that "rights" include reproductive rights, including abortion (which is not "murder"). And it's not intolerance or bigotry to insist that law and public policy make these rights effective in practice. The "rights of people with religious beliefs" can't possibly include interfering with the rights of everyone else. How absurd.
2
I am a non-believer, and I think Hobby Lobby is utterly wrong. I was brought up with the concept of "separation of church and state" as meaning this country passes laws and if you don't like them, too bad. We don't pass laws based on religious beliefs, and you don't get out of adhering to them because of your religious beliefs. That's what happens in Saudi Arabia and Iran, but not here. If the Hobby Lobby people are unable to say, well, we will obey the law of the land even though we're not happy about it, then I have no sympathy for them. They just want us to be their own Christian Sharia state.
And, they are dishonest people to boot. Hobby Lobby purchased thousands of ancient artifacts smuggled out of Iraq via the United Arab Emirates and Israel in 2010 and 2011. This is totally illegal, and they knew it was illegal. The artifacts have all been confiscated and they paid a fine. They are just hypocrites and thieves.
Yes, you must check your religion at the entrance to the marketplace. That's who we are as a nation.
2
These clinics are fraudulent. I do not believe that freedom of speech was ever intended to protect fraud.
22
I very much welcome Ms Greenhouse's analysis; my grear desire would be to read an advance "gedanken experiment" as to how either a minority/magority decision would be formulated against California's law, and yet allow South Dakota style scripts. An analysis of how right-oriented threading that legal needle would be done would be ... entertaining.
1
The fact that religious people wish to push their addiction on the rest of us makes my skin crawl more and more the older I get.
Keep it in your home and church, and leave the rest of us alone.
18
Free speech did not include a liar yelling "fire" in a crowded space. Misleading women searching for abortions is in the same category: harmful speech. We need to be protected from purveyors of harmful speech.
In both situations lives of the living are on the line. Sadly, in this anti-science atmosphere, the unborn are being equated with the born, with no thought for the poor mother of four who cannot feed them, nor, without funds either afford birth control or another child. Is she to be denied both sexual contact and abortion on an overpopulated planet? That would seem to be the inhumane answer of both the Koch brothers (corporate) and the evangelicals (religion).
13
Can we all stop pretending that the conservative justices on the SCOTUS do anything more than selectively interpret the constitution so to promote the conservative agenda? And once we stop pretending that conservative jurists are neutral referees, can we then agree to revisit an outdated, 230 year old document that is in drastic need of of an update? Better yet, can we just accept the reality that blue and red states are no longer United, and would be better off going their separate ways?
Seriously, let the red states have their gun-toting theocracy. Blue states would have a greater chance of realizing an enlightened, pragmatic society by seceding and forming their own union, so that at least part of the population can finally progress beyond this age of idiocy and barbarism.
18
Lying is an integral part of today’s GOP playbook. No matter how ludicrous the point made by these “clinics”, we can expect Trump GOP “Justice” Gorsuch to rubberstamp them, along with Justices Alito and Thomas.
15
"Free speech" will now be the new mantra for the Trump/GOP reactionaries. They will perversely argue it when they want to undermine/overthrow any law they refuse to obey or dislike.
Maybe they will attempt to reimpose child labor or slavery based on "free speech" grounds?
1
So glad LG is writing for the NY Times. Making complex legal and constitutional cases easier to understand, is a real value to readers interested in public policy. Thank you.
11
It’s an opinion! She is not a reporter.
2
Here's another opinion: These centers trick desperate women into thinking they've stumbled into a medical facility rather than a sham religious coven. These places are being called out for the frauds they are. The jig is up, and they don't like it. Tough.
1
Why didn't you realize that in your last remark? You can't have it both ways.
While I am sympathetic to the final opinions of Ms. Greenhouse's on both the Masterpiece Cakeshop case and this case, I suggest that she goes much too far with her statement " that if someone wants to be able to pick and choose his customers, he should bake for his friends in his own kitchen and stop calling himself a business". The NYT is a business that sells advertising. Should it not have the freedom to "pick and choose" its customers? I don't think that these cases are as simple as Ms. Greenhouse suggests.
Without looking it up, I'm sure the Times has policies governing refusing to sell space to particular advertisers; I'm also sure such decisions are made case by case, relate to things like the specific content of a proposed ad or to previous dealings with the customer, and are not based on the customer's membership in a group whose views or behaviors the people in charge categorically disapprove of. It's still pretty simple, actually.
Lieing, outright silly, totally false Internet nonsense, gaming the system by religions or the 1% is as American as apple pie. In this country money talks. And religions, the super wealthy and our politicans are all, for the most part, in the same dollar bucket. To them we are all just grazing beasts to be milked for our money, and they will say and do anything to get it. If a stand is not taken now requiring honesty in public disclosures and advertising, then these constant lies, evasions and deliberate misleading will never be curtailed. Since our children are not challenged to learn either ethics or critical thinking, disappointing as it maybe I don't see where our "money talks" nation will ever change. At least newspapers can be held to some account. If that's true, why not other organizations?
2
Masterpiece will win.... as it should.
The market should have been allowed to decide.
Cultures 'evolve' best when unnecessary government interference is left to a minimum.
Remember, Obama's insistence on a bathroom solution likely caused the loss of the White House.... and thus was counterproductive....
3
I wonder if Linda Greenhouse would care to respond to Solicitor General Francisco's hypothetical in the Masterpiece Cake oral argument in which Ku Klux Klan members commission an African American sculptor to sculpt a cross for a Klan service.
Would it be permissible to force the sculptor to sculpt the cross? (Assume that the KKK are a protected class in the relevant jurisdiction either on the basis of religion or political affiliation).
3
I arrive at the service provider wishing to kill my _____________ . My society and its laws proclaim my _______________ is not as human as other humans and is okay to kill. But this service provider does not agree that my _________ is less than human and seeks by subterfuge to keep me from killing my _______________. Who should be protected? Me? The service provider? My ______________?
Does it matter what I fill in the blank with? "Fetus"? "Slave"? "Out-of-favor ethnic neighbor"?
Do not denigrate the real source of this issue. How far is one allowed to go in pursuit of (reasonable, wide-spread, but not fashionable) moral conviction?
4
In the "Masterpiece" case I'm perplexed the umbrella principle was not even mentioned- Can any business owner refuse service to anybody for any reason ? It would seem to be an inalienable right easy to defend. The social checks and balance which operate would normally expose the business owner and a partial boycott of the business would run the guy out of town. The couple who applied for a cake should publicize the manner and go elsewhere.
3
The answer of course is NO. Rights may be inalienable but they are not absolute. Others have rights too. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that public accommodations, which includes "business owners," may not refuse service to a customer because or race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. "Social checks and balances" alone would never have ended Jim Crow, nor beaten back many kinds of oppression in this society. It's surprising anyone doesn't know this. This principle has now been extended to gay marriage and in many jurisdictions, like Colorado, to any other kind of discrimination against gays.
1
It seems to me that the underlying problem is the notion that institutions have rights. Greenhouse said tobacco companies claimed that warnings on their cigarette boxes violated their "free speech rights". And there is a big danger that corporations will cut their health costs by saying that they have "religious objections" to certain prescriptions. Corporations don't have religious beliefs, much less a "right" to them.
Institutional rights are really powers, and they should be eliminated.
10
For some reason corporations never have a religious objects to medicine that affect men's reproduction system. It's only the female reproductive system that rustles their jimmies. See Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor.
This is a great sentence: "In the topsy-turvy world in which we’re living, there will be something fitting about this truth-challenged administration arguing to the Supreme Court that a law requiring the truth is unconstitutional." Fabulous.
27
I simply cannot comprehend how any decent person can argue these cases. For the logic is exactly identical to pre-Civil War preachers who argued -- no strike that -- preached -- that African Americans were not quite human and should be kept as slaves.
Today, if one accepts the arguments of Masterpiece Cakeshop, then one must accept all of the EVIL leading up to the Civil War, and all that followed. I, for one, fail to understand how that is possible.
These cases all appear to be unintended consequences of the apparently save harmless provisions of the Religious Freedoms Restoration Act which intended to protect religion from arbitrarily prohibiting such acts as Sikhs wearing beards or turbans, Jews from getting a schedule that required work on the Sabbath when other schedules were possible, or prohibiting certain houses of worship in "my part of town."
It is time for a reevaluation of the whole concept of religious exemption. The First Amendment DOES NOT exempt religion from complying with the law, it merely prohibits selection of religion as a basis for special duties or exemptions.
12
One of the crown jewels of the NY Times is Linda Greenhouse. She has the unique ability to reduce complex legal issues so as to be understandable to laypersons. Writing in a clear and straightforward fashion she enables us , the readers, to arrive at our own conclusions, each of which may or disagree with her analysis. Such agreement and/or disagreement is reflected in the comments on her column today dealing with the knotty issues at the intersection of free or compelled speech at the difficult intersection with abortion. Three cheers for her work.
18
News flash, she doesn’t respect pro-life positions. Just read her writing.
4
You may want to read more closely. Her technique is to mix her leftist-political viewpoint with constitutional or legal issues and use policy positions to rationalize a preferred outcome. The only upside is that she's now doing this on the Opinion pages, where she's free to do whatever she wants. it was much more troubling when she was doing so as a reporter.
2
You would need to point to a specific article on a pro-life issue before the Court for me to understand your objection to Ms. Greehouse's writing. I have read her work for over forty years on a multitude of issues. She has been unfailingly consistent in giving a balanced description of the facts and the issues of law before the court in any case under consideration.
2
It's all well and good that the information may be truthful. Certainly there would be an issue if signage posted something patently false. However, in this circumstance it's really whether the "speech" in question can be required by the Government to be posted in a place of business. The truthfulness, or lack thereof, is a red herring, as is much of the policy argument outlined here. It's clear where Ms. Greenhouse's preferences lie, but as a constitutional question, it's really whether the government can mandate the presence of certain information.
1
But it's OK for "crisis pregnancy centers" to list themselves under the heading "abortion" in the phone book? Anti-abortionists can lie in order to effectively subvert a woman's legal (and very time-limited) right to choose an abortion, and government is powerless to take the most basic step to protect her right to see the truth? Utter hypocrisy.
1
Ms. Greenhouse’s take on anti-discrimination laws is that every individual becomes subjugated to those laws when engaged in any commercial related activity. She scorns the notion that personal expression or creativity can be embedded in as lowly an activity as making a cake. And, that we each must give up a part of our integrity so that equality of all must be maintained. This is a slippery road to Marxism.
It matters not at all the source of the baker’s views, religious or secular, it is his prerogative as to whom he offers his artistic talents.
3
Oh for heaven's sake. If you don't want to make a cake for certain people, you can't be compelled to do so, as long as you don't own a business and make money from it. When you open a business in this country, you are subject to the laws of this country. In this country, we have laws against discrimination. This is not hard to understand. Maybe you're too young to remember the days when black people were denied service in restaurants, but I am not. The slippery slope is going back to the days before the Civil Rights act.
1
It's actually the slippery "road" to the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the only real question is how far to include gays under its protections.
No freedom of speech is absolute. If people are "harmed," there are legal consequences. If the religionists prevail, they might start ruing what they wished for.
3
Would acupuncturists be compelled to post a sign stating that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of their services?
2
Christians, finding their demonstrated "moral" values unconvincing to a growing number of people, have adopted lying to hide their true intentions. They lie about TRAP laws, about the health effects of abortion, about the science of fetal gestation, and more. Apparently Christians have decided that "Thou shalt not lie." can be suspended.
If the maker of the bread that I buy at the grocery store has to be honest to me about how many carbs are in a slice, I don't think it's a leap to require a self-declared "clinic" to not lie -- overtly or by omission -- to a young women who is seeking information to make an important health decision, especially if it impedes her access to science-based, medical information from health professionals.
I have a hard time seeing how lying to trick her into carrying her pregnancy to term is in the interest of the woman, our society, or the flagging credibility of the Christian faith.
9
Telling the truth ought never be unconstitutional, hence, cannot be prohibited, just to satisfy somebody's bigotry or demagoguery to acquire or sell a product or idea on false presumptions. That the public remains too credulous, allowing not only the survival, but the thriving, of hucksters in our midst, remains unfortunately a fact, hopefully remediable by educating ourselves on the facts, and demanding the interested parties to seek, foremost, what is in the client's best interests. And not providing the information available so to be able to make a sound decision as to what to do, may be as bad as lying about it's existence or value. If the Religious Right wants freedom from the state, it is even more urgent that the state be free from religiously induced dogma...to follow unproven, even dangerous, paths divorced from reality.
4
Should the Times be required to print on their front pages “any of the stories and accounts in this paper may be false?” How can you argue with that? Surely, as Ms. Greenhouse states, how can a factual statement be unconstitutional?
This court has taken the first amendment beyond recognition.
4
And don't forget the case of Fane Lozman, now pending in the Supreme Court. He was handcuffed and arrested for attempting to speak at a public comment session of the City Council, which had privately discussed ways to investigate and threaten him. The appellate court ruled against his suit for denial of free speech, holding that he was committing or was about to commit the disruption of a public meeting, even though he had not started speaking. The judges appointed by the alt-right are seemingly about to wage a full scale war on freedom of speech and the Supreme Court is apparently becoming one of them. They have bent over backwards and strained any interpretation of law to favor the religious right. Does that interpretation also apply to Jewish, Muslim and other religions? And if evangelicals are religions, how about cult leaders? Where is this country going?
3
I don't know about a possible First Amendment tinge of what might be called “professional speech,” but it certainly exists. I am subjected to it nearly every day of my life, in print and other media advertisements, robocalls, junk mail, and so forth. I tend to call it 'exaggerations,' 'fanciful statements,' 'groundless correlations,' and 'lies.'
1
The 1st Amendment was created in part to allow ideas the government claimed wrong or improper to be heard. In this case CA did not shut down the centers/clinics. They can be heard. What it required was that clients also be given access to alternative (state-held) views. But as far as lying and fraud, there is already an enormous body of laws and regulations that are precedent.
False advertising, perjury, financial fraud, slander, libel, and deceitful contracts are all subject to laws or regulations, and not subject to blanket free speech protection. Large carve-outs exist for political and religious speech, but that is in part because they are 'opinions', areas where reasonable people can disagree. Financial fraud for personal gain is different, as is lying under oath in court.
My various workplaces, even churches, have posted required federal and state notices for employees since 1970 when I started working. This case is no different.
4
How does "California’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra", know that "More than half of the 700,000 pregnancies in the state every year are unintended"?
Great question. Ms. Greenhouse didn’t question that supposed fact. Why? Does she have an agenda? Rather than just the term op-ed, should a newspaper be required to print that the following piece is written by a person with an agenda written with the sole purpose to influence the reader? That’s a factual statement. How could it be unconstitutional?
1
It's obvious that you have an agenda.
3
How on earth a Virginia based right wing anti-abortion group decided to open shop in the liberal and diverse state of CA is beyond me. Unless it was a deliberate decision to "poke the sleeping bear." That said, one statistic in this article made me be ashamed to be a Californian. "Half of the pregnancies in CA are unplanned." Come on people, CA is a place of science. Let's get contraception free and in the hands of everyone who needs it. We already have quite a high poverty rate-- if you want to increase it, unplanned pregnancies in an already over-populated state are just the ticket. Reduce the pregnancies, no need for the charletons from VA.
5
I agree that California is right to do what it is trying. But there is
something missing when it comes to liberals and these causes.
I see a number of protestors (whatever else you call them) standing outside planned parenthood distributing literature (and worse, but that is not the point here). Pro-choice people need to do the same. Hand out a paper that gives the address of the nearest location where they can go instead.
I will be willing to volunteer for an hour a week.
If they lose customers (or suckers) this way, they will be out of business.
4
The inconvenient truth in all this is not about cake, abortion or first amendment rights, but to allow the GOP, Trump and his minions and the Alt-Right religious fanatics in this country to dictate what they deem as acceptable behavior. If one does not fit their definition it is their belief that a individual and/or group of individuals should be denied the service for which they are seeking. Other countries throughout the ages have tried this approach and look where it got them. Unfortunately the U S Supreme Court seems to going down this very rocky road.
5
This is exactly the crux of the situation. It is all about power and control, and there is a fascist element that wants to take over the nation, and run it as a theocratic military-industrial corporatocracy.
1
Isn'y trying to force NFL players to stand for the national anthem compelled speech?
Ditto the mandated "counseling" scripts as the article points out.
Fact is these people do not care about fairness, e1uity, or decency, they want to be able to compel the rest of us to do as they want and punish us for not doing it regardless of what the law or the Constitution says.
BTW can't the states simply put these places out of business for the fact that for their "business" model to work, they have to rely on deceiving or misleading people whether by omission or outright lies?
5
I am always struck by how view cases would arise if people were smarter.
Excellent encapsulation of the appropriate outcome of the baker's case, Ms. Greenhouse! Selling baked goods is neither a religious act, nor a matter of free speech. Its a commercial activity subject to the police power of the government.
The information case is no different than requiring the disclosure of nutrition information on packages of food and beverages. I'm sure Hostess doesn't like putting that information on their Twinkies. However, its just regulation of commerce under the police power to protect the people.
6
It seems to me that the underlying issue is more and more the culture war and ongoing fight and less and less the rightness of any particular outcome. In this case, the goal of a caring community/society is to provide every woman coping with the unbelievable stress of an unintended pregnancy or the heartbreak of a complication requiring the potential termination of that pregnancy with a support network that advocates for her and her personal interests as she perceives them. Why then, would not state run clinics feel a duty to inform patients of alternatives to abortion just as much as crisis pregnancy centers feel that same duty to inform clients of the full range of options and services? Why, in fact, would there not be a crisis pregnancy desk right next to the intake office of every state run clinic so they could operate in partnership? One is left to conclude that the Supreme Court Justices are asked to act as referees in a 6 way tag team wrestling competition through which the rest of us vicariously engage in the culture war by proxy. Any decision they make is by definition wrong and so the war go must on. What is needed from the Supreme Court is enough creative ambiguity in decision making to allow both sides to exit the match feeling like they won.
2
I've no objection to counseling being available, especially since Planned Parenthood does that already.
I do object to religious fanatics being encouraged to lie to women, especially since they are very often preying on them. Oh, and I object to far-right wackos passing laws that are intended to attack free choice, not support it.
4
Does a woman's right to know that the place she's gone to to try and get an abortion isn't licensed to perform one and will try to encourage her to keep the pregnancy going no matter what the risks are to her or what her desires may be outweigh the "advertising" the notice provides for the state of California or any state for that matter? I would say yes because states have an inherent interest in maintaining the health and well being of all their citizens. Women and men have the right to know that the place they are seeking medical care from is not properly licensed to dispense that care. In the case of a pregnant woman it can mean the difference between an uncomplicated abortion or one that might require more expensive methods and cost more.
The answer to the abortion question is this: if you don't want one don't have one. If you want to use your religion as a reason not to have an abortion that's your prerogative. Do not force others to do the same simply because your religion tells you that having an abortion is a sin. I'd rather see my tax dollars support a woman's right to choose than see them supporting a religious or lay institution that has no intentions of allowing a woman to have an abortion when that is her desire. It's her body and her choice, not mine.
13
hen3ry,
You do admit that the babe in the womb has human DNA.
And thus it is not just an issue of her body.
Why not Adoption instead of Abortion ?
1
Cassandra -- Sure, that's one of the choices on the menu. The mother gets to make the choice. I still think Roe v Wade got it basically right -- the choices narrow from one trimester to the next.
I’d hazard a guess that the Court will be very careful about setting too demanding a line on the question “When is it unconstitutional to require an entity that deals with the public to tell its customers the truth?” Too demanding a line will cause the bankruptcy of every Madison Ave. public relations firm until creative lawyers can find new ways around the ruling, and ad professionals can buy the additional 20 IQ points required to exploit the new end-runs.
But I’d agree with Linda that if a commercial baker wants to pick and choose his customers by the acceptability of their lifestyles, then he should just declare what he does a hobby and stop offering the services for money.
Most of these problems are direct consequences of the enormous number of lawyers we tolerate in our society, an argument with which that I doubt Linda sympathizes.
3
You ignore the fact that those lawyer are paid by people with deep pockets and sick minds that are always looking for ways to impose their will on the rest of us "for our own good" because in the end they do not believe in government by the people or for the people.
Few lawyers would get involved in these things if there was no money in it for them.
3
The cake baker should just be a hobbyist.
The "clinics" must post a sign saying "Abortions are not performed here." Normally, I tend a bit towards "buyer beware," as in, don't be a nitwit, everybody lies. Bring that car to a mechanic before you buy it off Craigslist.
But, time is of the essence with pregnancy. Some lies, even of omission, have larger consequences than being stuck with a clunker, so, yes, sometimes there can't be enough thoughtful lawyers like Linda Greenhouse around to fight for people too scared, too uneducated, or too uninformed to make good decisions.
4
I don't mind justices writing opinions that discuss the various amendments to the Constitution, but I wish they'd go to a higher standard: displaying how a ruling forms a more perfect Union, establishes Justice, insures domestic Tranquility, provides for the common defence, promotes the general Welfare, and secures the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
The Preamble to the Constitution is often treated as pretty words that don't have force of law. The truth is, it is our mission statement. The entire Constitution and every lesser law passed is supposed to be in service to the principles stated in the preamble.
I cannot see how protecting the dissembling and outright swindles of these pregnancy centers promotes the general welfare. I cannot see how it establishes justice for the women who end up there, nor how it promotes domestic tranquility by forcing thousands of women to give birth to children they are not prepared to raise, nor how it truly secures the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Forcing somebody to have a posterity they didn't plan for is not a blessing.
12
Jacob Sumner,
I agree with you about the Preamble.
But why not Adoption instead of Abortion ?
1
When a woman goes to a doctor, HER free speech is a given. The doctor? Not so much...she is purchasing health care (whether covered by insurance or not) and should not be subjected to religious preferences of the doctor, legalized speech against her beliefs, nor invasive procedures in order to achieve HER desires for health care. Free speech and freedom of religion allows each of us to have a voice, and follow our chosen faith. It does NOT enforce imposing either on others who are paying for services. And the religion part REALLY needs to stay out of the government. For all those far-Right who claim to be defenders of the constitution, they are wrong to bring their religious perspectives into politics and government.
32
I feel that those practitioners who deem themselves incapable of non-politicized delivery of medicine should post plaquards outside their office of all the subjects they will refuse to address. That way the patient's time isn't wasted. I'm a physician. I don't want my patients doctor shopping for anything. In my group, one of the partners has refused to Rx 'morning after pills' for rape victims (patients actually presenting for sexual assault evaluation.) We have all agreed to Rx for her medically unsound judgement.
4
Any organization that is in the business of providing medical advice, is subject to regulation to prevent dispensing fraudulent or misleading information. There are countless precedents for this. There is no First Amendment question here.
37
If we judge all actions in the light of "speech" or "religion" we can justify almost anything. My expression or "speech" can't be limited and the exercise of my "religion" should not require me to do things that I think are "sinful."
But it is strange how religious people pick and choose what precepts they do or do not follow. (They are like "strict" constructionists or legal "originalists" who are not strict or original all the time but just when it suits their argument.) One area where this selectivity occurs is in the area of same sex relations/marriage. The book of Leviticus does say that men should not lie together like a man with a woman. But in the same chapter it also says that people should not eat pork, people caught in adultery should be stoned to death, cloth should only contain one kind of fiber (no mixing of fibers in cloth), and a host of other admonitions. But people only worry about one point; if people are going to be Biblical Christians, should they not follow the entire Bible? Not just a verse here and there.
Corporations have free speech rights. Do they have religious beliefs?
12
How did the first amendment's useful words on free speech, which came out of the founders' wish to make clear the right of everyone to say that this or that official is a jerk, begin to include commercial communications where one business tells another just what a customer has bought. How did the personal right to speak ones mind morph into the right of businesses to spend whatever they want to push a candidate.
The right has long complained against the notion that the constitution evolves, but it clearly has for right as well as left.
7
Since Citizen's United determined that corporations are 'people', as appalling as that is.
3
So the argument, boiled down, seems to be that the state cannot compel "crisis pregnancy centers" to tell prospective "patients" that they do not provide a full range of services, though they pretend to do so, but that state programs do, but it may compel doctors to urge a particular course of action, for ideological reasons, and even to speak known falsehoods to reinforce that urging. Why bother discussing the matter; with Gorsuch on the court the outcome is already determined.
10
The Roberts Court has made most of their decisions based not on Constitutional law, but on their own political leanings or religious leanings. I have been under the false impression that the Supreme Court's job is to look to the Constitution and make an objective decision based on law, not their private beliefs. Unfortunately they are appointed for life, supposedly because the would keep politics out of their decisions. That has not happened. You just have to look at the Citizens United decision, calling Corporations people, yet people who form Corporations do so for the legal protections it has as an entity. Meaning the owners cannot be held personally liable for their actions.
Real truth has never been Unconstitutional.
11
Can the government require businesses to tell the truth? This seems easy - of course it can (and should). The purpose of government is to provide a better life for its citizens. It can't do that if businesses are free to lie.
Advertisers have legal departments to make sure their clients aren't lying (at least not too much). Why should matters of health be any different?
Imagine the outcry if government lied to encourage abortion the way so-called "pregnancy centers" lie or mislead to encourage women not to have abortions. We expect our government to tell us the truth. We should expect no less from the private sector.
7
I agree that the government can enact legislation preventing businesses from delivering untrue messages. The question is, is that the same as forcing them to deliver truthful ones, or can a business choose silence. There is no untruth if nothing is said, after all.
1
The FACT law was based on the recognition that "crisis pregnancy centers" lie to women. If "nothing is said," there is only "untruth."
Isn’t this case similar to the banning of health care providers from asking if their are guns in the homes of patients, especially those with children or who are suspected of spousal abuse?
13
Then the centers should make sure their religious message is clear: we do not agree with abortion and we will do everything we can to help a pregnant woman explore other alternatives. You are right: So much of what's going on these days with women's rights comes down to lying, doesn't it? Men who could simply admit bad acts, apologize, and move on, but instead accuse their accusers, so that even their political allies become angered.
12
Many Christians think that it is great that trump and right wing politicians claim to support Christianity. But I think that they are making a terrible mistake becoming identified with trump, Roy Moore, etc. Religion is being used for political and financial purposes and many right wing politicians/religious leaders have become little more than grifters. People know that many of these legal arguments about religious belief are just political dodges.
One of the most potent issues for fundraising and get out the vote is abortion. I am sure that there are many on the right who would not want to see abortion abolished. It is something that is handy to talk about, use as a fundraising issue, and it is a proven get out the vote issue at election time.
Anyone who claims to be a Christian should be honest and truthful.
But when religion becomes the road to power and money, look for it to be tarnished. I believe that Pope John XXIII once said that down through history, the Roman Church had exercised great political power and that power had done great damage to the church. One can't serve God and Mammon.
5
Fundamentalist Christians are pretty big on the inerrant literal nature of the bible.
As such, I'd say the Trump administration rather perfectly fits the mold of the anti-Christ, to wit:
Daniel 11:36-45
"Then the king will do as he pleases, and he will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will speak monstrous things against the God of gods; and he will prosper until the indignation is finished, for that which is decreed will be done. "He will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or for the desire of women, nor will he show regard for any other god; for he will magnify himself above them all. "But instead he will honor a god of fortresses, a god whom his fathers did not know; he will honor him with gold, silver, costly stones and treasures. read more.
4
We are on the cusp of slipping into a theocracy - some places we are already operating like one (read: bible belt). No one should have other's religious views forced upon them - this is one of the foundational pillars that makes America so great. There are plenty of countries around the world where religion and government are not separate.
If you believe a women is not allowed a choice. Go live in a country that has a different majority religion and be forced to comply with those laws. You will quickly see that is a very unfortunate place to live. Stop trying to make America be one of those places.
36
You realize most of Western Europe has more restrictive abortion laws
2
Not true. European countries have their own laws (waiting periods, term limits etc) but in practice an abortion is actually much easier to obtain than the US. The idea that Europe is more restrictive was clearly debunked: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/08/06/abortion_in_europe_and_a...
2
And other areas of the world do not.
Perhaps the most difficult problem arising from the right to freedom of speech is how to deal with lying. The presence of conscious falsehoods in medical advice, including that which advocates various health benefits from such things as pomegranate juice, would seem to be obviously subject to restriction and regulation. But what about lies in politics? We not only permit them, many of us reward them with support for the liars. Until we can resolve this kind of double standard with a measure of justice, the nation will continue to be consumed by a contagious moral rot, much of it spread from our leaders in Washington D.C.
4
While I support the baker in the Masterpiece case this is very different. These crisis centers are fraudulent in name if nothing else. Freedom of religion shouldn't be a defense of lying to vulnerable young women in trouble.
4
It's time for reproductive freedom advocates to develop their own "crisis pregnancy centers" to help educate their visitors on how under certain circumstances, ending a pregnancy can be a critical trap door for escaping disaster, and a force for social good.
4
The Supreme Court is often willing to protect first amendment rights when business profits are in jeopardy, no matter the vileness of the business. See U.S. v. Stevens where it found that the government could not, without violating free speech rights, prohibit producing or selling videos of organized dog fights. In Sorrell v. IMS, cited by Ms. Greenhouse, the Court protected Big Pharma’s right to bigger profits. And when Big Tobacco’s financial interests were threatened by the FDA’s requirement that it display the carnage it causes on cigarette packs, the Obama administration recognized what the Court would do in that case and chose not to appeal the DC appeals court holding that struck down the regulation. Perhaps because Nifla has not yet found a way to greatly monetize its positions and become Big Anti (stay tuned) there is some limited hope that the Supreme Court won’t offer it the same protections it offers Big Business.
1
The first amendment is of course always tricky, but especially when it results in judgments that permit evil. Lying is not always evil, as anyone who has been married or has raised a child (that is, who has been in a family, or interacted with other human beings) knows, even if truth in public matters is almost always desirable. True, the maintenance of the line between the true and the false is very much the charge of the Supreme Court. It is the Court’s job to provide an account of ultimate matters—a legitimation of both morality and political institutions—our culture, in Mark Lilla’s phrase “the way we love, the way we work, the way we die”—this is what culture means, or at least the way I interpret his meaning of culture.
But note that, while language and rhetoric constitute culture, they are not solely about what is or is not factual. I always (including here) learn from Ms. Greenhouse’s excellent discussions of the Supreme Court’s shenanigans, but (I’m sure she would agree) it’s even more complex than this column makes it.
"The required California notices, which includes a phone number to call, must be posted in the waiting room or shown to patients when they come in" legitimately serve the public health interest.
And the text of the notices are very mildly worded, as opposed to the misleading 'bait and switch' misleading advertising of the Christian-funded sperm protection centers posing as contraception centers.
The current text of the notices should be more strongly worded and should be expanded to be included on all the false advertising put out by these fake contraception centers.
The notices should read as follows:
"This facility/organization has a known bias toward state, federal and divine control of the nation's uteruses, prefers Christian Shariah Law to civil law and has significant religious funding and motivations; "be fruitful and multiply"...whether you like it or not."
Organized religion is the master of the Big Lie and is a known threat to public health, mental health, female health and global health.
There should be very strong public warning labels against such known health hazards.
98
The media theater continues to require suspension of disbelief with regard to the Supreme Court. These are nine politicians making political decisions. They have been selected because of their political beliefs and skill as lawyers, able to defend whatever conclusion serves their client. The only thing complicated about these issues is the contortions required to justify decisions that have little if any connection to reality. Corporations are people and baking a cake is free speech. Only clever lawyers trained at Harvard and Yale would take those clever arguments seriously.
18
So, to succinctly sum up--all due credit to View From the hill and Elizabeth Fuller--are there any Constitutional veracity restrictions on freedom of speech?
Time was, some Supreme Court Justices thought there were. The Oliver Wendell Holmes dictum that the First Amendment does not protect someone shouting "Fire!" in a non-burning building seems to indicate that truthfulness can be a factor in determining the limits of free speech.
But I don't think the majority of our Justices would hold that today (though perhaps those who are concerned with trigger warnings and hostile environments would). There is a long jurisprudent tradition of caveat emptor--false claims and "truthiness" are protected and we can count on the diversity of expressed viewpoints to ultimately protect us.
I'm not sure where I come down on that idea. As a writer and sometimes satirist, I am wary of any restriction on content on the grounds that the content may offend someone. But I do try to be accurate in what I write about my satirical targets, and don't know if blatant untruth should have the same protection.
Of course, this viewpoint is predicated on the idea that there are, actually, provable facts, a discernable reality. I do hold that view. I am aware that a lot of others don't.
12
The law, the existence of (specific) other options, and licensure status are all easily provable facts, regardless of one's views on epistemology, metaphysics, or ethics. Or religion.
1
Before liberals get too worked up about the constitutionality of "telling the truth" don't forget that many states want to require that abortion clinics fully inform their patients about the procedure they are about to undergo. Requirements that the patient see a sonogram of the fetus, or receive information regarding fetal development are also requirements for "truth in advertising."
20
Jim...those same states forcing sonograms on women are the same states that would categorically reject any requirement to inform gun buyers that their chances - and their family members' chances - of dying early increase significantly with the purchase of a gun. And those same states would happily abandon the baby at birth to a shredded safety net and zero healthcare funding.
I think most women understand what a pregnancy means in her life without a sonogram or a brochure about zygotes, blastomeres and fetuses.
I think most men who create and support these restrictive anti-women laws don't understand that their unwanted sperm is not wanted and also have no respect for women.
We also know that if men could get pregnant, the morning after-pill would be as common as dental floss and abortion would be as simple as getting a cavity filled at the dentist's office.
It's the whole truth that matters, not just dumb 'mansplaining' to a woman by telling her she's pregnant after she figured that out long before any man did.
Pathetic.
117
Then you agree smokers should be required to see the harmful effects of smoking on their lungs by undergoing and paying for a bronchial endoscopic picture before paying for cigarettes?
19
Isn't it more likely that such requirements were actually thought up to delay the patient's legal choice and even to confuse some?
19
Thank you for this excellent column. The anti-abortion forces in this country, much like the anti-gun control forces, are afraid of the truth. Lying or hiding the truth is the clearest indication that their position is untenable. Informed consumers scare merchants who are less that honest, just as informed citizens scare dishonest governments. Please continue to shine a light on these charlatans.
32
There is a vast difference between lying, which should under no circumstances be tolerated under the law, and simply not saying anything, thereby allowing the customer to make their own decisions based on their own research.
If I am selling a zircon ring and call it a diamond, that is fraudulent. If I simply say that I am selling this ring I have not lied and cannot be prosecuted. That is the difference.
And if the ring could cause blood poisoning, you would be silent?
Say the words!
GOP Supreme Court terrorism.
None of these ridiculous cases, whose sole purpose is to undermine the rule of law, would even be considered if the GOP grifters weren't there, all courtesy of GOP presidents.
Elections matter, but don't tell that to the non-voters, third party nihilists, and faux "independents" in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pa. who have collaborated with Trump to infest our institutions.
The tragic result is a sneering faction ruling the country which says almost daily, "We are the law, and what are you going to do about it?"
We cannot let them have their cake, or all will be lost.
50
Greenhouse would not recognize what is constitutional if it if it hit her in the face. However, she plays the part if a Rabbi in secluion well, picking apart the infinitesimal meaning of "acta" while reality passes her by.
1
I would like to see EEGs and cat scans taken of a large number of premature babies born in the third trimester, then compare with control groups born at 9 months and say those a year old. My guess is that there would be no difference in brain activity between the preemies and infants born past 9 months, if not those a year old. But the hard-core pro-choice people would insist on a woman's 'right' to terminate the life of a fetus in the third trimester. Hillary Clinton came out in favor of that in her third presidential debate.
My point is science may be on the pro-life side. Such experiments should be allowed to take place.
3
You left out the argument that forcing births creates taxpayer funded jobs.
Half of all births in the US are done by taxpayer funded workers, and those conservatives want to get to deliver babies are not the wealthy paying for child birth and raising the kids, but those who get care paid for by taxpayers. The taxpayers pay the workers providing the things those babies will need to grow up.
4
Include only scans for babies whose parents are seeking third trimester abortions and you may not get the results you are looking for. Those parents are not generally seeking abortion of healthy fetuses.
10
FIrst of all, Ms. Clinton wasn't asked about third-trimester abortions: she was asked about "late term" abortions, a term the pro-life movement applies to any pregnancy past the 20th week - which, not coincidentally, is the point when most women get the first ultrasound, and fetal deformities that are incompatible with life outside "the womb" are detected.
Secondly, here is what Ms. Clinton said: "The kinds of cases that fall at the end of pregnancy are often the most heartbreaking, painful decisions for families to make. I have met with women who toward the end of their pregnancy get the worst news one could get, that their health is in jeopardy if they continue to carry to term or that something terrible has happened or just been discovered about the pregnancy. I do not think the United States government should be stepping in and making those most personal of decisions. So you can regulate if you are doing so with the life and the health of the mother taken into account."
Ms. Clinton's position was very clear. But just keep pretending that every pregnancy is always perfectly healthy, and no one ever learns at the 20-week sonogram that their baby has no head, or no lungs. It's much easier to think that you are "saving" some perfect infant than that you are endangering a stranger's life, or forcing a woman to carry a doomed pregnancy toward a 40-week stillbirth.
1
I am always impressed by and pleased to read Greenhouse here. That said this piece is exemplary of the failure of the Neoliberal project in the United States in the 21st Century. Just look at the length of the explanation, ostensibly for women too broke and or uneducated to figure out that some pro superstition outfit is conning them. Where the rubber meets the road this is a bad sign. Confusion is as good as misdirection for preventing progress.
My Liberal Fellows should try to come to grips with the fact that however well reasoned, promoting petty tyranny whereby the government is relied upon to guide the course of living is doomed to fail in America. Outcries over what the government is not mandating are always at least 50% unpopular, even among those who would benefit. This is fundamental to the American psyche and not amenable to 3500 words of detailed argument.
The Liberal side of this country needs to invest privately in a Liberal secular program of education for the poor, the undereducated, the needy and all the others it cares so much about. If a girl learns through privately available programs all her body and biology and so absorbs very much less theological & patriarchal dogma, she won't need a little sign at some clinic to guide her way. Next time some Hollywood mogul drops a hundred $mil for some new museum in LA, write about how that might have helped girls both not become unnecessarily pregnant and end an unwanted pregnancy with dignity for themselves.
6
And God created the world in seven days, and there were no dinosaurs. I would say the same argument holds true for the book burners south of the Mason Dixon line. Depends on how big the con gets before everyone in the community is duped.
1
Ms. Green house hits the nail squarely on the head - law after law has been passed, nationwide, mandating what doctors must tell patients seeking abortion, almost to the point of forcing them to recite a script which attempts to persuade women not to follow through with the procedure.
But the shoe, now, it seems, is on the other foot. These so-called "clinics" object that giving any information other than exactly what the choose, even to the point of lying to patients and misleading them about the nature of the clinic they are in, is suddenly "protected first amendment speach" and cannot be regulated by the state.
Sorry, can't have it both ways. If the law can force abortion care providers to council women in specific ways, it can also force anti-abortion care providers in similar fashion.
And this goes far beyond the abortion debate: Businesses are required to provide specific information to both their employees, their customers, their suppliers, and the government about a wide range of issues, and are barred from making other types of statements about an even wider range of topics.
Do you really want to call ALL of that into question?
283
Yes.
@jcw. Hi there, Mr. W, the drug you're about to take has no serious side effects. Actually it does, but we have hidden them and we don't like being told that we have to tell you the truth. Good morning, Mr. W, I'm your financial analyst and I will give you advice that does me no good and only helps you. Except of course that isn't true since the law has been changed to let me sell you out for my own interest without telling you. Hey there, Mrs. W, where is your husband today? We are so glad you've chosen to buy this babyseat from us because those straps that look dangerous really aren't and it's the safest baby seat in the world. Actually, it's a death hazard but the CPSC now says we can fudge it a little, and oh by the way, you have no legal recourse because when you finish buying this you sign a piece of paper saying you give up all rights to sue us.
Get this deregulation thing going and don't force anybody to tell us anything about the truth. Oh, and Mr. W, your heart surgeon here is one of the best in the country and we're not going to mention how many hospitals he's been thrown out of because we don't pay much and he's making us a bundle.
Meanwhile, keep up the good work and stop these people who want to help consumers know the truth.
1
Poor Ms. Greenhouse. She is one Supreme Court appointment away from a perpetual hissy fit and two appointments away from being talked down from the ledge of the Golden Gate. Have a Chablis. With no filibuster, Trump can ram originalists right down democrat throats and through the Senate and they cannot stop him. That was on the ballot. Elections have consequences. Stay tuned.
4
"Elections have consequences" is a clever little phrase. Does it or should it mean an end to the counterweight to democracy, the limits on the power of winners in elections to use their power without restriction, the limits that protect the rights of the states and people? Does "election have consequences" empower a majority faction to make changes to the voting systems and apportionment that will perpetuate the rule of the majority faction? Can you justify slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, Apartheid, Gerrymandering, and more with "elections have consequences" argument that brought about these outcomes? Was that on the ballot?
4
" ... when is it unconstitutional to require an entity that deals with the public to tell its customers the truth?"
Never? I thought we settled that when we imposed truth-in-advertising laws.
" ... some states even [require] doctors to recite to their abortion patients a state-mandated script that contains such falsehoods as a warning that abortion places women at a higher risk for suicide. ... a Supreme Court decision striking down the California law would logically place the mandatory counseling laws in constitutional jeopardy — certainly those that require statements that lack factual support ... "
So we could take a certain grim satisfaction in a SCOTUS ruling against California. The way things are going these days, I'd be okay with that. California can always reword its message.
3
Can we assume that Ms. Greenhouse would have written the identical column if California required all abortion providers or counselors to post a sign that said "All abortions kill a living being?
When the government gets into the business of deciding what are "truths" and which ones the state may require speakers to speak, we are treading on very dangerous ground.
47
Whether all abortions kill a living human being is a matter of dispute. The fact that California has "public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive services (including all F.D.A.-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care and abortion for eligible women" is not. The two are completely different.
17
No, because a fetus is not a living being. Just because you believe it is along with others on the religious right does not make it so. The fact that misleading speech is masquerading as fact is what is reprehensible. The better question is in applying the Vermont case can Pharmaceutical companies lie with impunity under this free speech theory of Kennedy? If so, we will be in a world of hurt in getting any professional services.
I would argue that the entire anti-abortion approach is effectively false-advertising. Of course, the modern GOP is built on this concept of false advertising, so I am not surprised at their reaction.
14
The reality is that abortion has no place being decided by Government Officials. It is a private affair between the man and woman, based on their moral or religious beliefs, not based on law. Our Constitution protects our freedom of the choices we make. It appears that some citizens believe they can force their beliefs on me. That is not allowed by our Constitution.
12
Maybe religious organizations, and politicians should get their noses out of Women's wombs and let them decide for themselves what medical procedures they wish to avail for themselves. The whole abortion issue has become a battle over political power and has less to do with "life". Make no mistake about it churches thrive on political power and control of their flocks.
41
The NIFLA case has implications that go well beyond the case itself. The self-styled judicial conservatives on the Supreme Court pride themselves on what they believe the irrefutable logic of their judicial reasoning which, somehow, always seems to result in a decision that squares perfectly with right wing interest group orthodoxy. In this case they, as well as their colleagues, face the proverbial two edged sword, namely, either way they rule it will hurt their supporters somewhere. If they rule against the State of California, the similarly required but anti-abortion messages of other states must also be struck down. If the California message can stand, so can the ant-abortion messages.
No matter the result, nothing less than the basic intellectual honesty of our nation's highest court is at stake and, along with it, its commitment to the rule of law.
150
I could've sworn that intellectual honesty has been lost by one side of the bench for quite some time.
1
If you're right then Roy Moores are already serving on the Supreme Court. Do we need another in the senate as well?
2
MH,
You speak of 'Intellectual Honesty of our nation's highest court...'
Yet observers of the Court can tell you that the "Swing vote" for the question
of Free Speech heard yesterday and this case will probably come down to
Justice Kennedy, how can that be if the Liberal Members of the Court are
Intellectually Honest - should they not be open to the arguments put
before them ?
As long as we are at can someone explain to me how Justice Ginsburg
could officiate at a "Same Gender Wedding" before that case came before
the Supreme Court two years ago ?
1
You'd hope there'd be a principle of "truth in advertising" here. One corrective action would be a uniform notice requiring all such providers, both licensed and unlicensed, to list the services they are authorized to provide along with the information the "California has public programs ..." It seems to me that a uniform law adhering to "truth in advertising" for all might circumvent the need for a different notice about services not provided as well as help women understand what services the unlicensed clinics actually provide rather than the negative.
2
Ms. Greenhouse's last line is the key. The Trump Administration wants to tell us what truth is. The state of California wants the medical truth to be known and Nifla wants the power to lie. The Court established many years ago in Schenck that the First Amendment does not protect dangerous speech. It would stand to reason that the First Amendment does not protect lying that can cause danger to a woman. If the Supreme Court allows these lies, what else can it allow? The Republican-appointed members of the Court may very well be affected by the religious undertones of the case when making their judgment, despite the fact the Court is accepting the case on First Amendment grounds.
54
The Government compels speech in health care contexts, HIPPA rules, informed consent and other mandatory information with the wording crafted by the State.
In the cases discussed by Ms. Greenhouse the underlying issue seems, to me, to be religion, whether a religion (in this case anti-freechoice-ism) is free to say what ever it wishes, including falsehoods, while those who oppose this ism are allowed to counter these falsehoods.
The current crop of religiously informed Justices seem to side with the religious side of the argument too frequently.
16
A balanced legal review commenting on unbalanced legal theories, advanced by those for whom the ends justify the means.
In both cakes and choice, the proponents would do away with precedent arising from a long and careful consideration of the rights of all citizens in order to achieve their own narrow, specific ends.
And, yes, lying is just fine with those who would upend policies relating to public accommodations and disclosure of the absence of professional credentials, without regard for whose ox will be gored next.
Pitiful. Tragic. Wrong-headed.
6
Free speech does not mean implying a lie by omission. When a woman goes to a center that implies full medical and professional service but actually is neither medically licensed nor truthful in legal and medical information --- that is deliberately deceptive practice. These women enticed by ads (who either have no personal doctor or feels forced by circumstance to go elsewhere) and under time pressure thru pregnancy to make difficult choices possibly affecting the rest of their lives SHOULD NOT BE PREYED UPON by pseudo-medical clinics.
These "clinics" have the right to their free speech -- but how can that give them the right to deceive others with partial or wrong information? Otherwise we should be still promoting snake-oil salesmen under the guise of their free speech.
46
I think anyone who wishes to drag "truth" into a discussion about our New Living Constitution should as applied to its more recent expansion into protections on aborting babies and homosexualality is first obliged to define interstate commerce, or rather what, in the progressive interpretation of "truth" as applied to constitutional law is NOT interstate commerce. As long as 80% of federal activity is a clear violation of any honest reading of the text, "truth" is a vacuous concept in constitutional law. Merely a manipulation of language to dupe the unaware in the game of power.
1
I hope at least some of the people who did not vote in 2016 because "my vote doesn't count" realize now how wrong they were, but I doubt it.
5
So freedom of speech extends to knowingly lying and intentional deception. Only in America.
59
Yep, only in America where corporate money and wedding cakes are free speech.
1
The trouble with government and religion is that one of the primary tenants of any religion is the suspension of belief while the purpose of government is grounded in immutable law. The fact that the two are in constant conflict should be a surprise to no one.
What is remarkable about our American experiment in democracy is that its genesis derived from this conflict and our social contract picks sides in the debate. In America we say that religion is merely a factor while government will always be the final arbiter.
Reconciling religious folks to this simple reality is the moral equivalent of herding cats, which, when you think about it, is why we made government the final arbiter in the very first place...
258
I think you mean suspension of disbelief.
1
The problem here is that the initial thesis, that religion is usually based on the suspension of belief and that government is grounded in immutable law is just plain wrong.
Religion, and let's be honest, this opinion piece is dealing with the Christian religion, is not based on the suspension of belief, but the centrality of holding true beliefs based on evidence. Moreover, laws are not immutable. Laws are added, amended, and removed all the time. In addition, the concept of the constitution as a living document, means the interpretation of a law, and thus it's application, can change from generation to generation.
Belief is central to religion and laws are not immutable.
1
"tenets".
1
I always look forward to your unraveling of legal questions. This case is clearly important - but equally clearly - what is there to be done?
I see the notice as a health notice; nothing requires the employees of this outfit to discuss the State -offered alternatives. What they ask - and what has been set in place in the states you cite - is a return to the days when drs. could not even discuss birth control legally with patients.
We know we are on a road to back door abortions, because these extremists would absolutely rather have women who decide to have abortions suffer as much as possible for their decision. Where are the younger women who care about the loss of control of their own bodies?
But again - even with providing donations to fight, this Court is not attuned to the needs of real human beings.
22
Growing up, I saw signs posted in businesses stating: "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." Of course, that is no longer legal with no one seriously arguing a business can refuse service based upon race, culture, sex or sexual orientation.
The problem is 4 justices seem to long for the days when businesses could decide who, and who not, to serve. They seem to believe an owner of a business has an absolute right to decline service because they are the owner of the business. Of course, the law moved beyond that arcane discriminatory principle decades ago, but 4 justices seem unable to let go of the concept.
Enter religious belief as the centerpiece for discriminatory behavior. It provides 4 justices with a veneer of credibility in resurrecting an owner's ability to deny service to anyone. It is no longer the bigoted owner denying service to a patron, but a religious man merely trying to protect his sacred beliefs. Just cloak one's discriminatory behavior in the good book and all is legal.
Hopefully, Kennedy's pragmatism will abort (pun intended) these 4 arcane justices (one of whom would not be where he is without civil rights laws) from allowing business owners to impose their religious prejudices on the rest of us.
98
You have that wrong. You can refuse service to ANYONE for a valid reason, it's just that race, creed etc (not sexual orientation, that is not Fed protected, the cake case is Colo. law) are NOT valid reasons anymore.
16
Businesses still have the right to refuse service to anyone. They just can't do on the basis of the person belonging to any of the categories you describe.
A sports team can't bar a patron from entering a stadium because he is black but can bar one was previously ejected from it for obnoxious behavior.
1
This explanation of the intricacies of abortion laws is illuminating, if only in its complexity. When I first read or heard Linda Greenhouse's explanations of the law more than twenty years ago, it seemed political polarity was not as extreme as it is today, although there did exist a left vs. right position on criminal legal matters ( i.e death penalty ), and fewer cases involving voting rights after the l964 Voting Rights Acts in contrast to today's voter id laws. How does the Supreme Court and indeed lower courts handle government -be it State or Federal - policy in an era which Greenhouse describes as topsy-turvy where the Trump administration has turned all fact and "truth" upon which law is based - beyond judicial interpretation into the unchartered realm of an alternative universe.
59
Women deserve to have all the facts. What's with ordering doctors to tell women falsehoods, i.e. LIES, about their medical choices? State should not be allowed pass laws saying doctors cannot to tell their patients the truth. Would anyone want their doctor to tell them that they have cancer but refuse, or be prevented, from, explaining their treatment options or their option to refuse treatment? Where does such nonsense stop? If the Supreme Court upholds the denying of truth-telling, I think women should bring a class action suit insisting that all information be available to them, including the proven risks and benefits of any choice, and that doctors may not be gagged.
169
It's all so sad, and leaves one feeling helpless. The bottom line may turn out to be that false pretences is a protected category of speech, and it is a violation of the First Amendment for a state to compel businesses to tell the truth.
190
And because corporations have been declared persons, they presumably do have first amendment rights. If we can't compel an individual to tell the truth, can we then not compel corporations to do the same? Scary times ahead.
61
But they can be sued if or when people get harmed.
I wonder how this will affect truth in advertising laws?