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The content on this blog is my personal opinion and does not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the US Navy in any way.


Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Abortion and Free Speech

Believe it or not, I'm actually a bit conflicted over the result of the Supreme Court case regarding a crisis pregnancy center in California and the messages about abortion availability they were required to post.

I think the best way to put it is that I can easily understand how requiring someone to provide information about a service that wasn't even requested in the first place falls outside the scope of one's professional responsibility. If your entire practice is built around addressing a given problem in a specific way, and that's made clear to your customers at the outset, then requiring any more information about methods you don't provide may be a bit much.

... Of course, several caveats apply. Most CPCs, for example, would never dream of actually warning people that they will not provide any support or advice regarding abortion. Some of them will go so far as to actively lie about the risks of an abortion. If the people approaching you are looking to discuss all of their options when they're pregnant, either is almost certainly malpractice, and I have no problem with the state withholding licenses from organizations that operate that way.

So in the end, while I don't think I'd have gone as far as the California law that was struck down did, I'm irritated that the likely result is going to be these centers lying with more impunity, whether by omission or outright.

At least I can console myself with the fact that my side now gets to ask pointed questions about compelling speech designed to limit or discourage abortions. It's less useful for us; I do want to make sure that women are aware of all their options and wouldn't want to not give them a full picture of what carrying to term and either giving up the child for adoption or keeping them would entail. Still, I imagine it'd be a lot easier on some people if it could be omitted or reduced when it clearly made sense to do so.

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