A federal court has struck down a Hawaii law obligating anti-abortion pregnancy centers to inform women that they can obtain state-funded abortions elsewhere.
District Court Judge Derrick K. Watson ruled Thursday in Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor v. Suzuki that Hawaii’s law could not be enforced because it is similar to another that was struck down in California by the Supreme Court, in a case known as National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra. In that case, the court ruled in June that the California law violated the First Amendment right to free speech.
The Hawaii law, which was signed by Gov. David Ige in July, obligated anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to post a website and phone number that would tell women about clinics where they could go to receive pregnancy services, including abortions. Violators would face a $500 fine for the first breach and a $1,000 fine every time it occurred later.
“The bottom line is that no American should ever be forced to promote a message with which they disagree under threat of government punishment,” the Alliance for Defending Freedom, which brought the case, said on its website following the ruling.
More than 2 million people across the U.S. go to anti-abortion clinics for care every year, according to data from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, which is the research arm of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List. Some of the pregnancy centers provide pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and testing for sexually transmitted infections, among other services. They generally aim to serve women facing unplanned pregnancies and provide them with support and resources for choosing parenting or adoption.
Supporters of posting the signs have warned that the anti-abortion pregnancy centers are “fake clinics” that offer misleading information to women. Anecdotal accounts have shown that some offer women false information about how far along they are in a pregnancy, or work to actively dissuade women from having an abortion.
The same organization that operated the centers in California, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, also operates five of them in Hawaii.
