2016 has already seen a lot of PDA between California and Planned Parenthood. The two renewed their unholy marriage vows once again last month with the passage of a new bill designed to keep abortion sacred in the city of Oakland.
Oakland, California has the highest rate of violent crime in the state of California – and California has one of the highest abortion rates in the entire nation. But the city inexplicably decided that attacking the First Amendment rights of Pro-Life pregnancy resource centers was a top priority. That’s right: the city of Oakland is “essentially banning advertisements from Pro-Life pregnancy centers,” according to a recent LifeNews report.
LifeNews.com’s Micaiah Bilger reports:
In a statement, Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker claimed that the new ordinance does respect pro-lifer’s freedom of speech. But she also threatened to sue them if they do not follow the new ban.
“If their message is truly compelling, they should have no problem being honest about what they do and do not offer,” Parker said. “If they refuse to be honest, the City Attorney will have the power to sue violators to hold them accountable.”
[…]
The ordinance reads like something out of an abortion activist’s handbook. Not only could the city penalize pro-life pregnancy centers with fines, but it also could force them to pay for “corrective advertising[.]”
Money appears to be at the root of the pro-abortion measure. The ordinance states that pro-life pregnancy centers may delay a woman in getting an abortion, resulting in higher costs for a later-term abortion. Because many abortions are paid for on the taxpayer’s dime in California, the ordinance states that the ad regulations are needed to prevent additional “cost to local taxpayers that can accrue from such a delay.”
In case there was any doubt that AB 1671 is a front for abortion industry bullying, consider this: when asked for comment on the bill, Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez declined, referring reporters to the bill’s “sponsor,” Planned Parenthood, according to Courthouse News Service. The bill made headlines last month when even liberal activists voiced opposition to the proposal’s breathtaking evisceration of Free Speech rights.
Gomez pulled a semantics gem right out of the abortion industry’s playbook when he dovetailed the so-called “right to privacy” with the First Amendment, saying: “I always knew it’d be difficult to balance the right of privacy and the right of free speech. I think that is a tension that we’ve seen in court case after court case and law after law. And we always strive to find that right balance.” Translation: as long as a city finds “the right balance” between abrogating constitutional rights and pushing abortion, then abrogating constitutional rights becomes A-OK.
California has been spending beaucoup time and resources trying to force churches to pay for abortions and Pro-Life organizations to promote them. Readers may recall, too, that during the last Texas gubernatorial election, anti-Life Democrat Wendy Davis garnered major enthusiasm from the state of California in spite of her epic failure to capture votes on home soil. Perhaps the Golden State should consider renaming themselves the Abortion State.