Lying to pregnant people likely to become constitutionally protected speech
Good news for liars: the Supreme Court may soon rule that anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” have a constitutional right to deceive vulnerable women, so long as they do it in the name of God. Using the First Amendment to lie to folks in the name of their Jesus may be a SCOTUS holiday gift to liars.
The technical question at the heart of the case is whether First Choice is allowed to sue in federal court while a state case is still playing out; it’s about determining if they brought their lawsuit at the right time in the legal process. Given that procedural focus, there was almost no discussion of how CPCs mislead people and how the court is about to help them evade future accountability for doing so.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed this case last December, arguing that there was no live controversy and that they should fight the subpoena in state court. First Choice appealed to the Supreme Court and in June, the justices agreed to hear the case. (Note: it only takes four votes to accept a case and the voting is private, so we don’t know which conservative freaks wanted to take this case.)
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Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked the attorney for New Jersey, Sundeep Iyer, about this allegation later in the argument. “My friends on the other side don’t let the actual factual allegations get in the way of telling a story about hostility here,” Iyer responded. “At the end of the day, what they’re identifying are policy disagreements that they have with the attorney general. That’s never been enough to establish hostility. It’s never been enough to establish standing [to sue].”
The Trump administration’s Justice Department asked to join the arguments on behalf of First Choice, and, unsurprisingly, the conservative justices seemed to lean toward the crisis pregnancy center over the state of New Jersey. We aren’t likely to get the final ruling in the case until the end of the court’s term in June.
In oral arguments this week, conservative justices barely mentioned the fact that these fake clinics often peddle pseudoscience, misrepresent abortion options, and lure people in under false pretense. Instead, the focus was on whether New Jersey’s perfectly legal consumer fraud probe hurt the delicate feelings of organizations whose business model is built on misinformation. The message? If you wrap your scam in a cross and call it “counseling,” the Supreme Court looks likely to bless it with constitutional protections.
At the same time, other parts of the regime are working to prevent telling of the truth about how vaccines save lives. Go figure.
“When I use a word, it means just what a I chose it to mean, neither more nor less!” Humpty Dumpty talking to Alice.