Six from eight Los Angeles-location “pregnancy centers” visited by KPCC are not complying along with a brand-new state law requiring them to notify their clients that the state offers access to low-cost and free abortions.
KPCC additionally located that authorities are not aggressively enforcing the law, which took effect Jan. 1. Some cities are deferring to the state, while others are waiting to receive complaints concerning pregnancy centers prior to investigating them.
There are 189 of these centers in California, according to the California ProLife Council. They offer women along with pregnancy tests, ultrasounds and counseling. However critics say these facilities’ main target is to persuade women not to have actually abortions.
The state legislature passed the notification law last year adhering to an undercover investigation of 45 pregnancy centers by NARAL Pro-Choice California. The probe located that “90 percent of them … lied concerning medical facts about pregnancy and abortion” and “attempted to embarrassment and delay women from accessing abortion care,” says Amy Everitt, the group’s state director.
Pro-abortion rights teams love NARAL define any kind of opposition to abortion as “lying,” responds Matt Bowman, a lawyer representing the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, which counts a lot more compared to 100 California pregnancy centers as members. He says efforts to regulate exactly what pregnancy centers tell their patients quantity to censorship.
Bowman is additionally senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing pregnancy centers in among five lawsuits seeking to overturn the notification law. The matches allege the measure violates the centers’ freedom of speech and religion.
‘I’m Pepsi…not Coca-Cola’
One of the centers not complying along with the law is Foothills Pregnancy Resource focus in Duarte. Executive Director Lori Berg gave KPCC a tour of the facility, including exactly what she calls the “selections counseling room.” There are a couple of chairs, some brochures and a small television.
“We have actually a video concerning the straightforward suction abortion – that’s prior to initial trimester,” Berg explains. “However there’s not anything gory. A woman can easily see for herself, this is the procedure.”
Next door is a room along with an ultrasound machine. The images are displayed on a big-screen TV mounted on the wall. There are additionally huge posters along with pictures of fetuses at various stages of development.
Berg points to one poster: “This picture – eight weeks – can easily make a difference. Now, if somebody says that’s coercive – this is science. This isn’t something I dreamt up.”
The focus additionally offers support teams for women who’ve had abortions and gives away free diapers and clothes to brand-new moms.
Asked to explain why she won’t information the notice concerning access to abortions, Berg says the dispute over the law resembles the Cola Wars.
“I’m Pepsi-Cola, I’m not Coca-Cola,” Berg says. “Don’t force me to position Coca-Cola posters or even hand out free coupons for Coca-Cola.”
‘have actually you ever…steered over the rate limit?’
Women’s Pregnancy Care Clinic, which has actually two spots in Pasadena and Whittier, isn’t complying along with the law either. Jeanette Kuiphof, that runs the 2 centers, says she’s not adhering to the law due to the fact that she hasn’t been cited yet.
She draws an analogy: “have actually you ever, ever steered over the rate limit? OK, did you run down to the police station and self-report yourself? due to the fact that that was the law. And you didn’t comply along with it.”
There are 3 methods a focus can easily comply along with the law: It can easily information the notice in its waiting area, it can easily hand the notice to clients or it can easily offer it to them online. Kuiphof says she’ll opt for the latter option, as soon as her clinics switch to electronic healthiness records this summer.
The law additionally calls for a clinic to notify its clients if it is not licensed by the state as a medical facility.
KPCC additionally located centers in Glendale, Torrance and Los Angeles that don’t information the abortion notice in their lobbies. The director of the Glendale center, Avenues Pregnancy Clinic, has actually not returned several phone calls. The others two – Pregnancy Assistance focus in Torrance and Los Angeles Pregnancy Solutions in L.A. – deferred to Alliance Defending Freedom.
Asked whether the Torrance and L.A. centers are complying along with the law by distributing the notice straight to their clients, Alliance Senior Counsel Bowman said, “Every one of I can easily confirm is that lots of of these centers have actually said, in their court papers, we cannot refer out women and their unborn youngsters for the destruction of the child, paid for by the state of California.”
The 5 lawsuits seeking to overturn the law are making their method through the courts. Judges have denied pregnancy centers’ requests for preliminary injunctions in four of the suits, ruling the facilities should comply along with the law while the cases are being heard. Plaintiffs’ request for an injunction in the fifth lawsuit is pending.
Waiting for complaints
The penalty for not complying along with the law is $500 for a initial offense and $1,000 for each offense after that. The law says the state attorney general, city attorneys or county counsels “may” enforce it.
“The law was carefully structured to share responsibility between state and neighborhood entities to ensure that in every county, each and every pregnancy clinic was complying along with the law,” says Jill Habig, special counsel to Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Cities are taking various approaches to enforcement. Glendale and Whittier say that because they’re not called for to enforce the law, they’re leaving it up to the state.
Duarte, estate of Lori Berg’s center, says it will certainly enforce the law.
“So far the city of Duarte has actually not received any kind of complaints, so at this point we haven’t proceeded along with any kind of enforcement,” says Deputy City Manager Karen Herrera.
Pasadena, estate to among Jeannette Kuiphof’s centers, says it will certainly enforce the law if it receives any kind of complaints. L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer’s office has actually the exact same position.
Back in Duarte, Lori Berg says there’s one more need she’s not complying along with the law: Her lawyers advised her not to due to the fact that they expect the courts to overturn it.
For now, Berg is posting signs throughout her focus that say, “You are treasured, valued, loved, supported, cherished,” she says. “That’s exactly what we want women to feel, regardless of [their] choice.”
For its part, the Attorney General Harris’ office says it’s committed to ensuring the abortion notice law is upheld in court.
