Oregon Bill Attacks Pregnancy Centers Providing Abortion Alternatives

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 23, 2013   |   4:13PM   |   Salem, OR

Oregon Right to Life issued an action alert today asking pro-life people to contact their state legislators and urge opposition to a bill that attacks pregnancy centers providing women with abortion alternatives.

From the pro-life group:

Senate Bill 490 is an unnecessary and unfair bill targeting non-profit, pro-life Pregnancy Care Centers.  It has been sent to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means and can be acted upon at any time.

Email your Senator asking him or her to oppose SB 490.  It is very important that Senators have many emails from constituents! We want NO further action on SB 490.

SB 490 targets small community-based nonprofit organizations that do not receive any state or federal funds.

SB 490 is an unconstitutional infringement upon free speech rights because it compels pregnancy centers to say words they would not otherwise say and regulates speech NOT conduct.

SB 490 is part of a national campaign that is based upon differences in ideology and uses unsubstantiated accusations.

This bill is disastrous for Pregnancy Centers because the Oregon Health Authority would regulate us by making whatever rules they care to make and fining us if we can’t understand or comply with the rules.    Pregnancy Centers already abide by regulations from CLIA, OSHA, HIPAA, and all Oregon/Federal laws that are pertinent to the services we render.  Adding OHA would be “crushing”. This bill is virtually the same bill that New York City, Baltimore, MD, Austin TX, and San Francisco adopted as city ordinances in recent years. All these ordinances have been sued since they violate the 1st amendment, and therefore have not been enacted.

This bill is simply the continuation of Planned Parenthood’s long-standing campaign to misrepresent PRCs in order to persuade the state to investigate, regulate and eliminate PRCs. They’ve been making the same accusations and misrepresentations for over 15 years. They continue to fine-tune their legal and legislative strategy until they get a regulative foothold into PRCs, so they can regulate us out of existence through a govt. agency, such as the Oregon Health Authority.

This campaign against PRCs by Planned Parenthood has been carried out to look as if it is objective, for the public welfare. The abortion industry believes that the only ones who should have influence on women facing unplanned pregnancies are those who provide “comprehensive reproductive healthcare.” And they define that as promoting and providing abortion and all forms of birth control. They believe that anyone who doesn’t fit that definition should be silenced and removed.

ACTION: Contact your legislators by going to https://www.leg.state.or.us/