California Pregnancy Center Wins Licensing Battle After Govt. Discrimination
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 28, 2004
El Cajon, CA (LifeNews.com) — After a long battle with the California state government, a southern California crisis pregnancy center has won the right to a state license to allow it to expand its services.
The Pregnancy Care Center of El Cajon, near San Diego, had been fighting for the past two years for a clinical license. The center contended the state was discriminating against it by preventing it from obtaining the license while not licensing abortion businesses.
Despite a statutory rule that requires such licenses to be considered within 100 days of application, the state took nearly two years to finally issue a denial.
A judge monitored the in-court settlement providing the pregnancy center with the license that will allow it to offer ultrasound services, pregnancy tests administered by registered nurses, and direct doctor-patient primary care.
Pro-life attorney Scott Lively told WorldNetDaily that the California Department of Health Services admitted it was improperly preventing the pregnancy center from obtaining the needed license.
"The decision is a wonderful affirmation of the crisis pregnancy center’s equal citizenship in the community as service providers," Lively told WND.
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.
While unlicensed abortion center staffers in California can administer the "morning after" pill that sometimes causes an abortion, the El Cajon crisis pregnancy center cannot even give an over-the-counter pregnancy test to a client.
Matt Waters of CareNet, a national organization of crisis pregnancy centers, says that is a double standard.
"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."
Though a state lawmaker intervened to help the pregnancy center, WND reported, the final decision denying the application didn’t come until a local newspaper investigated the matter.
