Posted on 01/06/2021 6:58:35 AM PST by Kaslin
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has a record of attacking the freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Joe Biden has decided to name him secretary of Health and Human Services. They have shared values.
In 2018, Becerra filed a brief in the Supreme Court in the case of National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Becerra. The question: Could California force pro-life pregnancy centers to promote government-funded abortions?
Specifically, a California law required pro-life centers to provide their patients with a notice that said: "California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including all FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women. To determine whether you qualify, contact the county social services office at (insert the telephone number)."
Becerra absurdly argued that forcing pro-lifers to deliver this message was not compelled speech -- let alone contrary to the values of a pro-life pregnancy center.
"It is just one of a number of non-ideological notices required in the healthcare field, which will ... not interfere with their own message," he told the Supreme Court.
Justice Clarence Thomas disagreed.
"Here, for example, licensed clinics must provide a government-drafted script about the availability of state-sponsored services, as well as contact information for how to obtain them," Thomas wrote in a 5-4 opinion. "One of those services is abortion -- the very practice that petitioners are devoted to opposing. By requiring petitioners to inform women how they can obtain state-subsidized abortions -- at the same time petitioners try to dissuade women from choosing that option -- the licensed notice plainly 'alters the content' of petitioners' speech."
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has a record of attacking the freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Joe Biden has decided to name him secretary of Health and Human Services. They have shared values.
In 2018, Becerra filed a brief in the Supreme Court in the case of National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Becerra. The question: Could California force pro-life pregnancy centers to promote government-funded abortions?
Specifically, a California law required pro-life centers to provide their patients with a notice that said: "California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including all FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women. To determine whether you qualify, contact the county social services office at (insert the telephone number)."
Becerra absurdly argued that forcing pro-lifers to deliver this message was not compelled speech -- let alone contrary to the values of a pro-life pregnancy center.
"It is just one of a number of non-ideological notices required in the healthcare field, which will ... not interfere with their own message," he told the Supreme Court.
Justice Clarence Thomas disagreed.
"Here, for example, licensed clinics must provide a government-drafted script about the availability of state-sponsored services, as well as contact information for how to obtain them," Thomas wrote in a 5-4 opinion. "One of those services is abortion -- the very practice that petitioners are devoted to opposing. By requiring petitioners to inform women how they can obtain state-subsidized abortions -- at the same time petitioners try to dissuade women from choosing that option -- the licensed notice plainly 'alters the content' of petitioners' speech."
These conscience-protecting regulations, Becerra argued, "were issued without statutory authority and violated the First and Fifth Amendments."
Thomas again disagreed.
"We hold today that the Departments had the statutory authority to craft that (religious) exemption, as well as the contemporaneously issued moral exemption," he wrote in another 5-4 opinion. "We further hold that the rules promulgating these exemptions are free from procedural defects."
When Joe Biden was campaigning, he made the most sweeping pro-abortion promises of any successful presidential candidate in our nation's history. He promised to federally fund abortion by "repealing the Hyde Amendment," restore "the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate in place before the U.S. Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision," and use the federal Justice Department to thwart pro-lifers who try to protect the lives of unborn babies by passing laws at the state level.
"Biden will work to codify Roe v. Wade, and his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate Roe v. Wade," said his campaign website.
Xavier Becerra -- if confirmed -- will lead a Biden HHS that is focused on advancing the killing of unborn babies and funding that killing with federal tax dollars.
And Becerra, by the way, was also a co-chair of "Catholics for Biden."
Shut up, Becerra.
It’s been said often throughout my lifetime, the rest of the nation is 20 years behind California. I’m seeing it play out over and over. Whatever stupid crap trends in California, the rest of the nation dutifully follows in time.
As long as it is “approved” speech.
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