Tag Archives: counseling

U.S. top court to hear dispute over California pregnancy center law

An activist holds a rosary while ralling against abortion outside City Hall in Los Angeles, California September 29, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether a California law requiring private facilities that counsel pregnant women against abortion to post signs telling clients how to get state-funded abortions and contraceptives violates free speech rights.

The justices will hear an appeal brought by Christian-based non-profit facilities sometimes called “crisis pregnancy centers” of a lower court ruling that upheld the Democratic-backed 2015 California law. The challengers argue that the law, by forcing them to post the information, violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

California argued that the Reproductive FACT Act, passed by a Democratic-led legislature and signed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, is justified by its responsibility to regulate the healthcare industry and is needed to ensure that women know the state has programs providing abortions and birth control.

The law requires licensed healthcare facilities to post a notice saying that the state has programs for “immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services … prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women.” For non-licensed medical facilities, an additional notice is required stating that the center “has no licensed medical provider who provides or directly supervises the provision of services.”

The facilities had asked the high court to hear their appeal of a ruling last year by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the law.

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to similar law in New York City, although that case differed from the California dispute because the lower court had struck down several provisions, including one that required centers to disclose whether they provide abortions and other reproductive care.

The “crisis pregnancy centers” counsel women not to have abortions. These facilities, according to critics, often are located near hospitals and abortion clinics, offer ultrasounds and are staffed by people wearing medical garb. Some are medically licensed facilities, others are not.

Challengers included the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, an umbrella group for anti-abortion pregnancy crisis centers that said its members include 73 centers in California that are medically licensed and 38 that are not.

The other plaintiffs are two centers in San Diego County: Pregnancy Care Center and Fallbrook Pregnancy Resource Center. The court did not act on three other cases brought by other centers making similar claims.

The Supreme Court found that women have a constitutional right to an abortion in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade. The court most recently backed abortion rights in 2016 when it struck down a Texas law that imposed strict regulations on clinics that provided abortions.

 

 

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

 

Tennessee law to allow counselors to deny service based on beliefs

File photo of Tennessee Republican Governor Haslam listening during the National Governors Association Winter Meeting

(This version of the April 27 story, corrects paragraph 10 to read North Carolina, not South Carolina)

By Alex Dobuzinskis  Tennessee’s Republican governor on Wednesday signed a law allowing mental health counselors to refuse service to patients on “sincerely held principles,” the latest in a string of U.S. state measures criticized as discriminatory against the gay community.

Governor Bill Haslam signed the bill into law three weeks after it was approved by the legislature. It goes into effect immediately.

“The substance of this bill doesn’t address a group, issue or belief system,” Haslam said in a statement.

“Rather, it allows counselors – just as we allow other professionals like doctors and lawyers – to refer a client to another counselor when the goals or behaviors would violate a sincerely held principle.”

An earlier version of the bill had allowed counselors to refuse service to patients on religious grounds, but it was amended to remove any direct reference to religion.

The law protects therapists and counselors from legal action when they cite their personal principles in refusing service, despite a provision in the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics barring members from such denials of service.

“This measure is rooted in the dangerous misconception that religion can be used as a free pass to discriminate,” Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, said in a statement.

Weinberg called the bill one in a series of “attacks” on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community following last year’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court striking down state bans on gay marriage.

Haslam had previously told Nashville Public Radio he was considering the effect the legislation may have on Tennessee and its citizens, as laws criticized as discriminatory against the LGBT community has drawn increased scrutiny in several states.

In North Carolina, a number of companies including PayPal Holdings and Deutsche Bank have canceled plans to add jobs in the state after it passed a law requiring people to use bathrooms or locker rooms in schools and other public facilities that match the gender on their birth certificate rather than their gender identity.

Haslam said he decided to sign the counseling bill in part because it forbids denial of service to patients in danger of harming themselves or others.

Earlier this month, Haslam disappointed some Christians in the state when he vetoed legislation that would have made the Bible Tennessee’s official book. The governor said that violated the U.S. Constitution.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Alan Crosby)