California Pregnancy Center Sues State for Denying License

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jul 14, 2003   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

California Pregnancy Center Sues State for Denying License

by Maria Gallagher
LifeNews.com Staff Writer
July 14, 2003

El Cajon, CA (LifeNews.com) — A California pregnancy care center has filed suit in federal district court, contending it is being discriminated against because it offers pregnant women the "choice of life" for their babies.

The Pregnancy Care Center of El Cajon, near San Diego, has been fighting for the past two years for a clinical license, but has been consistently denied one by the state of California.

Attorneys for the center maintain that the "right to privacy" established by the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision should apply to women who want to give birth to their babies and should not be invoked solely for women who want to abort.

Attorney Richard Ackerman told WorldNetDaily, "Crisis pregnancy centers, while a bastion of Christian reproductive health philosophy, have been slow to demand the same rights fought for by the enemy since 1973. While we demand that Roe v. Wade be overturned, the reality is that Roe remains the law, and the women served by the center have rights too."

The lawsuit also notes that the state has ignored a number of violations of the law by a local Planned Parenthood agency. Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion operation and considers crisis pregnancy centers to be a threat to its livelihood.

While unlicensed abortion center staffers in California can administer the "morning after" abortion pill, the El Cajon crisis pregnancy center cannot even give an over-the-counter pregnancy test to a client.

Meanwhile, in an interview with LifeNews.com, Brian Johnston of the California Pro-Life Council indicates that the state’s reluctance to grant a license to a pregnancy care center is not surprising.

"The bureaucracy of the State of California is in the hands of pro-abortion, not ‘pro-choice,’ but pro-abortion advocates. They ruthlessly enforce a presumption for abortion and death, not for life," said Johnston.

"This presumption begins at the Governor’s office," Johnston continued. "Gray Davis has directed the considerable resources of the state at the whim of the pro-abortion lobby. Susan Kennedy, his principal policy advisor and Secretary of his Cabinet, is the past Director of the California Abortion Right’s Action League. Davis has publicly directed the legislature to not even attempt to introduce a single bill limiting the state’s radical commitment to abortion on demand or its unlimited funding with taxpayer’s money."

In essence, a double standard exists regarding the treatment of CPCs and abortion centers, according to Matt Waters a spokesman for Care Net, a national organization of crisis pregnancy centers.

"Most state legislatures protect abortion clinics from your run-of-the-mill medical care regulations as most could not remain in business if they had to actually meet some basic standard of medical care," Waters told LifeNews.com. "Veterinarian hospitals are subject to more state regulations than your average abortion clinic."