The ancient adage “those who don’t work, won’t eat” sounds like the inspo behind a new US law.
Older low-income people will now have to get employed in order to receive government food assistance as part of the debt ceiling agreement that President Biden signed this week.
The deal raises the age cutoff for work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from 50 to 54. Adults younger than 54 without disabilities and with no dependents must work at least 80 hours a month to get long-term SNAP benefits.
The conservative think tank Foundation For Government Accountability claims that doling out help without strings attached “traps people in government dependency.” It recommends adding universal work requirements to poverty aid programs, arguing the measures would boost the economy by spurring folks into job-seeking action and alleviating labor shortages.
“Let’s help people get lifted out of poverty into jobs,” said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as he promoted work requirements for government aid last month.
Social media users are calling out the corporate hypocrisy of the enthusiastic virtue signaling of pride month in the U.S. yet making no such grand statements in advertising campaigns in the Middle East.
Video game developer Bethesda, for its part, posted a tweet on June 2 acknowledging pride month while its Middle East account made no such reference nor had it updated its profile picture.
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Pfizer, for example, displays the pride themed logo for its Twitter accounts in countries such as America, Mexico, and Canada, but is absent for countries like Saudi Arabia.
Comedian Leo Kearse also jumped in to call out the corporations, writing “Corporations: celebrating pride where it makes them money, not celebrating it where it doesn’t.”
According to Human Rights Watch, government officials in the Middle East target LGBTQ+ individuals.
🚨 Breaking: Big corporations are running out of ink 🏳️🌈 in their Middle East pages. What could possibly be the reason? 🤡 _ pic.twitter.com/hSaiCfBYSn
Supreme Court preview: Major decisions still to come
Zach Schonfeld, The Hill
Updated:
(The Hill) – The Supreme Court’s decision season is in full swing.
The justices in the coming weeks will hand down major rulings on student debt relief, affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act, with opinions in 30 remaining cases expected to be released by June 30.
Here’s a preview of the major decisions.
Student Debt Relief
The fate of President Biden’s student debt relief plan rests with the justices, who are weighing two separate challenges: one from six Republican-led states, the other from two individual borrowers.
At stake is whether more than 40 million Americans will receive debt relief — as well as a major Biden campaign promise.
The plan, currently on hold, would cancel up to $20,000 in loans for Pell Grant recipients and $10,000 for other borrowers, if the individual’s income is less than $125,000. The income limit is doubled for married couples.
It’s possible, however, that the court throws out the challenges without reaching the merits. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett during oral argument joined the court’s three liberals in fiercely questioning the challengers on whether they had legal standing to sue in the first place.
Affirmative Action
Decades of affirmative action programs in college admissions may soon be coming to an end.
The Supreme Court is considering challenges to the admissions policies of both Harvard University’s and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The rulings will have nationwide impacts.
The justices are explicitly being asked to overturn a landmark 2003 decision that allowed race to be considered as one of many factors in college admissions.
Affirmative action survived another challenge before the justices in 2016, but the addition of former President Trump’s appointees in the years since has turned the court to the right.
It makes the twin cases now before the justices the greatest threat yet to affirmative action programs; at oral argument, the court signaled skepticism about upholding race-conscious admissions policies.
Voting Rights Act
The justices are poised to decide when states must draw minority-majority districts as the court resolves a dispute involving Alabama’s congressional map.
The opinion could further narrow the Voting Rights Act, a decade after the court disallowed another provision — which controlled which state and local governments were subject to federal preclearance before changing their voting laws — due to being unconstitutional.
In Alabama, state Republicans are asking the justices to reverse a lower ruling that found their map violated Section 2 of the law, which remains in effect.
Alabama’s map includes one majority-Black congressional district out of seven total, despite the group accounting for 27 percent of the state’s population. A three-judge panel ruled the map violated Section 2 by impermissibly packing Black voters into one district and spreading them out throughout others.
The GOP-led state argues their design was race-neutral, and that following the opposing arguments would prioritize race above traditional redistricting principles.
In a 5-4 vote last year, the court temporarily reinstated Alabama’s map as it took up the case. Several conservative justices seemed open to raising the legal bar for Voting Rights Act map challenges, but even if Alabama comes out victorious, it’s unclear exactly how broadly the court will rule.
American Indian adoptions
The Supreme Court may soon prompt a major shift in how foster care placements and adoptions are handled for thousands of American Indian children.
The justices are hearing a constitutional challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which Congress enacted in 1978 to combat the common practice of separating Native children from their family and tribe.
The ICWA imposes minimum standards for removing Native children and establishes default preferences for their adoption and foster care placements.
Several couples that sought to adopt or foster Native children are suing over the law, contending it institutes racial classifications that violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
They are joined by Texas and a parent whose Native biological child was adopted by one of the couples. The parties further argue that Congress exceeded its authority in enacting the law.
Several tribes and the Biden administration defended the ICWA before the justices, insisting the law’s references to “Indian child” and tribes are political-based distinctions, not race-based ones.
LGBTQ protections
First came the cake baker. Now comes the website designer
Various wedding vendors who oppose same-sex marriage and say their products amount to pure speech have challenged public accommodation laws that require them to provide equal services regardless of a customer’s sexual orientation.
Taking up a challenge to Colorado’s law, the high court may put its thumb on the scale this term.
In 2018, the court avoided weighing in on the hot-button issue by resolving cake shop owner Jack Phillips’s challenge to Colorado’s law on narrow grounds.
A few miles away from Phillips’s shop, website designer Lorie Smith wants to create wedding websites. But Colorado’s law would require Smith to offer those services to same-sex couples.
She’s asked the justices to decide the question they never reached five years ago. At oral argument, the court’s conservatives signaled support for Smith.
Independent State Legislature Theory
An appeal from North Carolina Republican state lawmakers may upend legal challenges to congressional maps and other federal election rules. It could also be a dud.
The case involves the so-called “independent state legislature” theory, which contends that the Constitution gives state legislatures near-total authority to regulate federal elections, removing all other state-level bodies from the process.
Following that argument would prevent state courts and state constitutions from hearing claims such as partisan gerrymandering in congressional redistricting.
Last year, Democratic-majority North Carolina Supreme Court struck down the state’s Republican-drawn congressional map. It prompted the state lawmakers to appeal to the nation’s highest court and argue that the state court had no authority, urging the justices to adopt the theory.
After Republicans regained control of the North Carolina Supreme Court in the midterms, the new majority granted a rare rehearing of the case and overturned the earlier decision.
The justices in Washington have since questioned whether they still have authority to move ahead, since they are hearing an appeal of a ruling that effectively no longer exists.
Dismissing the case could also punt the issue to the 2024 election cycle.
Texas Children’s Hospital, the nation’s largest children’s hospital, will no longer offer transgender medical procedures for children, according to the hospital’s CEO Mark Wallace.
The decision will place the hospital in compliance with legislation, Senate Bill 14, which passed in a vote mainly along party lines on May 11.
The legislation will take effect on Sept. 1 once it is signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, who has signaled he will do so.
Under the legislation (pdf), procedures and treatments for gender transitioning, gender reassignment, or gender dysphoria that are intended to transition a child’s biological sex, will be banned.
Such procedures include those that sterilize children, such as castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, and vaginoplasty, as well as drugs that induce temporary or permanent infertility, or block or delay normal puberty.
Objectives: With legislative changes to cannabis legalization and increasing prevalence of use, cannabis is the most commonly used federally illicit drug in pregnancy. Our study aims to assess the perinatal outcomes associated with prenatal cannabis use disorder.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using California linked hospital discharge-vital statistics data and included singleton, nonanomalous births occurring between 23 and 42 weeks of gestational age. χ 2 Test and multivariable logistic regression were used for statistical analyses.
Results: A total of 2,380,446 patients were included, and 9144 (0.38%) were identified as using cannabis during pregnancy. There was a significantly increased risk for adverse birthing person outcomes, including gestational hypertension (…P = 0.004), preeclampsia (…P < 0.001), and severe maternal morbidity (…P = 0.033). Prenatal cannabis use disorder was also associated with an increased risk of neonatal outcomes including respiratory distress syndrome (…0.001), small for gestational age (…P < 0.001), neonatal intensive care unit admission (…P < 0.001), and infant death (…P < 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference in stillbirth (…P = 0.80) and hypoglycemia (…P = 0.045).
Conclusions: Our study suggests that prenatal cannabis use disorder is associated with increased maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.
Bottom line: There was a significantly increased risk for adverse event outcomes, including gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, and severe maternal morbidity. Prenatal cannabis use disorder was also associated with an increased risk of neonatal outcomes including respiratory distress syndrome, small for gestational age, neonatal intensive care unit admission, and infant death.
A 2023 study documents that almost five percent of women in their first trimester use marijuana. This is an unacceptably high number and efforts to educate the public on the health risks of this drug should be undertaken.
Women who are pregnant should not smoke or vape. THC has also been found in breast milk. Women should not breast feed and use marijuana. End of message.
This letter is in response to the request from Janssen Biotech, Inc. received on May 22, 2023, that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdraw the EUA for the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine issued on February 27, 2021, as subsequently amended. Janssen Biotech, Inc has informed the FDA that the last lots of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine purchased by the United States Government have expired, that there is no demand for new lots of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine in the United States, and that Janssen Biotech, Inc does not intend to update the strain composition of this vaccine to address emerging variants…
Because FDA understands that Janssen Biotech, Inc. no longer intends to offer the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine in the United States under the EUA and because Janssen Biotech, Inc. has requested that FDA withdraw the EUA for the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine, FDA has determined that it is appropriate to protect the public health or safety to revoke this authorization.
Conclusion: J&J asked for the withdrawal of the EUA from their product, as it is no longer commercially viable – so they no longer wish to be required to manufacture it. The FDA granted the approval.
The National Poison Data System (NPDS) database was used to examine trends in suspected suicide attempts by self-poisoning among persons aged 10-19 years before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared with 2019 (prepandemic), during 2021, the overall rate of suspected suicide attempts by self-poisoning increased by 30.0% (95% CI = 28.6%-30.9%), rates among children aged 10-12 years, adolescents aged 13-15 years, and females increased 73.0% (67.4%-80.0%), 48.8% (46.7%-50.9%), and 36.8% (35.4%-38.2%), respectively, and these trends continued into the third quarter of 2022.
This may be self-evident to most, but lockdowns and school closures had a significant impact on children and adolescents, as well as families. This included economic hardships and social isolation. The fact that suicide attempts rose by over 30% in adolescents should be enough to disuade any public health official from considering this policy again.
This is apparently not the case with the new director of the CDC, Dr. Mandy Cohen, who led lock-down efforts and school closures in North Carolina during the pandemic. NC had some of the longest school closures in the nation.
Although the study cited in this 2019 media advisory is not recent news, the fact is that many, if not most people do not know that Tylenol during pregnancy is associated with a significantly increased risk of autism and ADHD.
As the first trimester of pregnancy is when it is easiest to cause fetal damage and many women are not aware that they are pregnant yet – this advisory should be known to any woman of child bearing age.
Researchers analyzed data from the Boston Birth Cohort, a long-term study of factors influencing pregnancy and child development. They collected umbilical cord blood from 996 births and measured the amount of acetaminophen and two of its byproducts in each sample. By the time the children were an average of 8.9 years, 25.8% had been diagnosed with ADHD only, 6.6% with ASD only and 4.2% with ADHD and ASD. The researchers classified the amount of acetaminophen and its byproducts in the samples into thirds, from lowest to highest. Compared to the lowest third, the middle third of exposure was associated with about 2.26 times the risk for ADHD. The highest third of exposure was associated with 2.86 times the risk. Similarly, ASD risk was higher for those in the middle third (2.14 times) and highest third (3.62 times).
What is important also is that infant Acetaminophen is still on the market, recommended for both preterm and term infants. It is also recommended for pain relief after vaccination (which could compound neurological damage). Because of the known and unknown risks of Acetaminophen for infants, I would advise parents to be very careful using Acetaminophen. There are alternatives – please explore them with your physician.
In February 2021, NIH announced that Congress would provide the agency $1.15 billion in funding over four years to study long COVID.
An investigation by STAT and MuckRock, a nonprofit news outlet, revealed the NIH’s efforts to study long COVID have done little to benefit those struggling with the disorder and haven’t contributed meaningful information about the condition, either.
As of April 2023, NIH has “basically nothing to show for” its research to date.
Instead of conducting trials to pin down how to prevent and cure long COVID, NIH has spent most of its money simply watching, tracking, and recording long COVID symptoms.
Gathering information about NIH’s long COVID data—and where the $1.15 billion in funding has gone—hasn’t proven easy; there is no single NIH official in charge of the efforts and the agency isn’t sharing even basic information about its research.
“In sum, COVID-19 epidemiological studies cited in our work plus the failure of HIV, Malaria, and Pertussis vaccines constitute irrefutable evidence demonstrating that an increase in IgG4 levels impairs immune responses,” Alberto Rubio Casillas, a researcher with the biology laboratory at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico and one of the authors of the new paper, told The Epoch Times via email.
Pfizer and Moderna officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Both companies utilize messenger RNA (mRNA) technology in their vaccines.
Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the technology, said the paper illustrates why he’s been warning about the negative effects of repeated vaccination.
“I warned that more jabs can result in what’s called high zone tolerance, of which the switch to IgG4 is one of the mechanisms. And now we have data that clearly demonstrate that’s occurring in the case of this as well as some other vaccines,” Malone, who wasn’t involved with the study, told The Epoch Times.
… emerging evidence suggests that the reported increase in IgG4 levels detected after repeated vaccination with the mRNA vaccines may not be a protective mechanism; rather, it constitutes an immune tolerance mechanism to the spike protein that could promote unopposed SARS-CoV2 infection and replication by suppressing natural antiviral responses. Increased IgG4 synthesis due to repeated mRNA vaccination with high antigen concentrations may also cause autoimmune diseases, and promote cancer growth and autoimmune myocarditis in susceptible individuals.
Left-wing extremism and aggression are linked to psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies, a new study has found.
People with narcissistic or psychopathic tendencies are more likely to strongly endorse left-wing aggression against authority, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Psychology.
The study found that people with dark personality traits like narcissism and psychopathy tend to be drawn more to certain aggressive left-wing political and social activities. Their desire to engage in these activities is not always rooted in a genuine desire for social justice, though, but rather is a way to satisfy their ego, the study suggests.
The study introduced a new term for this behavior called the “dark-ego-vehicle principle.”
“According to this principle, individuals with dark personalities – such as high narcissistic and psychopathic traits – are attracted to certain forms of political and social activism which they can use as a vehicle to satisfy their own ego-focused needs instead of actually aiming at social justice and equality,” study authors Dr. Ann Krispenz and Dr. Alexander Bertrams told PsyPost.
Bertrams is the head of the Educational Psychology Lab at the University of Bern in Switzerland, and Krispenz is a postdoctoral associate at the same university.
The study was actually made up of two studies, both of which found that “individuals who strongly endorse anti-hierarchical aggression to overthrow those in power are narcissistic individuals with psychopathic attributes and thus driven by ego-focused motives.”
“In particular, certain forms of activism might provide them with opportunities for positive self-presentation and displays of moral superiority, to gain social status, to dominate others, and to engage in social conflicts and aggression to satisfy their need for thrill seeking,” the authors told PsyPost.
The study authors warned that, “minority groups should be made aware of the narcissistic ‘enemies’ from within their activist movement, as these individuals could hijack the cause thereby reducing the success of the activism in many ways.”
Narcissists pretend to be prosocial, they said, but actually tend to have “low empathy,” the authors said.
The authors said they wanted to investigate the personality traits linked with left-wing authoritarianism because the concept has been met with skepticism by many researchers and there is not a lot of research on the subject.
“We were interested in the psychological factors behind authoritarianism,” they said. “There is a wide range of literature and research in the field of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). However, research on authoritarianism observed in individuals who are supportive of left-wing political ideologies are still rare,” they said.
They used another researcher’s new measure for left-wing authoritarianism.
That new measure defined left-wing authoritarianism as a combination of three things, anti-hierarchical aggression or wanting to use force to overthrow established hierarchies, anti-conventionalism or embracing progressive moral values, and top-down censorship or wanting to use the government to suppress speech.
Edited.
Violent left-wing activism has cropped up frequently in the U.S. in recent years, most notably during the summer of 2020, when activists destroyed the downtown areas of major cities during protests around the death of George Floyd.
Black Chicago Residents Slam City Officials Over Funding For Migrants.
Black Chicago residents criticized city officials for funding migrants over their community, they said during a city council meeting Wednesday.
The statements from angry residents came before the city council voted to allocate $51 million to support migrants in Chicago, according to a livestream of the meeting. The residents shamed the city council for considering the funding as the city faces homeless and mental health crises within its own populations.
“I understand that $51 million are gonna be voted on today and I encourage the alderman to please vote it down because number one, we have not opened up the schools for our homeless, we see them in the streets everyday, I make sure that the homeless are fed with clothing,” Caroline Ruff, Black Lives Matter Women of Faith founder, said during Wednesday’s meeting. “We need to take care of our community, we need to take care of our black community, we need to open up these schools for mental health.”
WATCH:
“We have not gotten anything for our community and we are sick and tired … enough is enough,” Ruff said.
Another resident, Andre Smith, said he and another individual stopped a migrant bus and were arrested during the situation. Smith advocated that the city put the funds towards reparations.
“How dare this mayor and city council have the guts to give migrants $51 million. I demand you to have the same passion and urgency to pass the City of Chicago Reparations Ordinance and also give us a office for black Americans, just like the new Americans,” Smith, the CEO of Chicago Against Violence, said.
WATCH:
“We didn’t have the luxury or the opportunity to cross the border. We didn’t have the privilege to cross the border. We came over here being raped, stolen, beaten, chained in the bottom of ships, and you give migrants $51 million? Have you forgot who you are?,” Smith said, adding that “our ancestors are looking at us and holding us accountable, don’t say you black if you not gonna put your pen where your mouth is.”
WATCH:
“I suggest that they should not be housed in impoverished and marginalized black and brown communities, where we have food shortages and homelessness, but in more affluent communities, where there are many more resources,” Walt Kendrick, a Chicago resident and activist, said after being booed by the crowd for supporting the funding.
Federal authorities recorded more than 2.3 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2022 at the southern border and more than 1.4 million in the first seven months of fiscal year 2023.
One of the snitches from the Obama days snitched on Joe. It’s being reported that one of the informants who’s been used during the Obama days is the one who spilled the beans on Joe.
The individual behind the information that then-Vice President Joe Biden was involved in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national is a “highly credible” FBI confidential human source who has been used by the bureau in multiple investigative matters dating back to the Obama administration, Fox News Digital has learned.
The information in the FD-1023 form, according to the whistleblower, reveals “a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose” and details an arrangement involving an exchange of money for policy decisions.
But the far left extremists are claiming this was intel provided by Rudy and the Ukrainians. And even AG Barr dismissed it.
The Dutch have a particular horror of fascism. They bravely resisted the Nazis during the Second World War, as the German occupation of the Netherlands cut off food and fuel shipments. During the “Hunger Winter,” which lasted from 1944 until the Allied liberation in 1945, at least 22,000 Dutch people died from malnutrition.
That experience branded the national character with a strongly libertarian streak. It also explains why, post-war, the Netherlands created the most successful agricultural economy on the planet out of the ruins.
Though smaller than the state of West Virginia, they became the world’s second-biggest exporter of food after the United States. And despite the temperate climate, farmers have developed a thriving fruit and vegetable industry, including growing bananas in greenhouses. Not even their damp lands have held them back; Dutch engineering has allowed productive farming to flourish below sea level. There’s a floating dairy farm in Rotterdam Harbor that provides the city with milk, butter, and yogurt while shoring up flood resistance. As a dairy farmer myself, in Scotland, I’m inspired by what my fellow farmers have pulled off.
The Netherlands’ particular history also explains why, at least initially, the Dutch were enthusiastic early members of what became the European Union; they were driven by a determination that a war on the continent should never happen again. But now Dutch farmers are turning against the EU—and their own prime minister—in a bid to fight for their most basic liberties.
That’s because EU climate laws have led the Dutch government to commit to reducing nitrogen emissions by 50 percent by 2030. To achieve this, the government has threatened to withdraw farmers’ licenses to farm because of their high nitrogen emissions, mainly stemming from cow dung and fertilizers. Without their licenses, farmers won’t be able to borrow money, putting many in financial peril. Farmers feel they are being scapegoated even though they farm efficiently. Nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands have fallen 50 percent since 1990—while airlines and other emitters show little restraint in the face of climate change.
Why, the farmers ask, are they being singled out?..
CUNY Law commencement speaker Fatima Mousa Mohammed sparked intense backlash for attacking police as "fascists" and declaring law as a "manifestation of white supremacy." (Fox News Digital )
Views: 22
I want to thank FOX Digital for this awesome article.
The City University of New York (CUNY) condemned the controversial commencement address from its public law school as “hate speech” Tuesday following intense backlash.
A statement released from CUNY’s Board of Trustees and its chancellor addressed the divisive comments from law school graduate Fatima Mousa Mohammed, who attacked “oppressive” institutions of law and order such as the military, the police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. prison system, declaring law is a “manifestation of white supremacy” and called the NYPD “fascist.”
“Free speech is precious, but often messy, and is vital to the foundation of higher education. Hate speech, however, should not be confused with free speech and has no place on our campuses or in our city, our state or our nation,” CUNY wrote.
“The remarks by a student-selected speaker at the CUNY Law School graduation, unfortunately, fall into the category of hate speech as they were a public expression of hate toward people and communities based on their religion, race or political affiliation. The Board of Trustees of the City University of New York condemns such hate speech,” the statement continued.”
A press conference was held at the SCV Pregnancy Center in Santa Clarita on Wednesday, May 24, 2023 to voice opposition to legislative attempts to regulate the controversial centers, which are protected by the first amendment.(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Views: 19
At Sierra Pregnancy and Health, Executive Director Cary Wilcox beams with pride holding a plastic model of what will soon be a new mobile clinic thanks to a flood of donations after its “biggest year ever.”
Outside the nondescript nonprofit just 20 miles from the California capital, a sign advertises “abortion pill reversal” — a practice involving the hormone progesterone that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists deems “unethical” and “not supported by science.”
The facility is licensed by the California Department of Public Health as a community clinic but has been flagged as a “crisis pregnancy center” — an industry long accused of misleading women about their services in order to steer them away from abortion.
The Roseville-based center provides free pregnancy tests and first-trimester ultrasounds advertised as part of “pre-abortion screenings” but does not offer abortions or help women get them. Its medical staff includes unpaid retired doctors and nurses who volunteer their time, Wilcox said.
A watercolor painting of a wave hangs above a couch in the consultation room, where clients are warned of abortion-related grief and given pamphlets that ask “is God listening?” A magazine the clinic hands out cites research linking abortion to breast cancer that has been refuted by the American Cancer Society.
Wilcox said part of the clinic’s mission is to “share the love of Jesus,” but she rejects the idea that her industry exists to coerce women out of abortion.
Her clinic is a community resource, she said, pointing to 10,000 diapers and wipes given away in the last year alone and to items such as car seats and baby monitors that parents can “earn” through taking approved parenting classes.
“We don’t force births. Someone can still walk out of here and get an abortion,” she said. “We don’t judge. Our job is to help her make an informed choice.”
Sierra Pregnancy and Health in Roseville, Calif., offers “abortion pill reversal,” which is not authorized by the FDA.
(José Luis Villegas / For The Times)
Across California, where Democratic lawmakers have crafted some of the nation’s strongest abortion rights laws, antiabortion pregnancy centers appear to be untouchable despite repeated attempts to rein them in.
And some are even expanding, boosted by an influx of donations from abortion opponents who object to the enhanced protections enacted in California in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
Two state bills to limit them quietly stalled this month, even as the latest package of abortion access laws is otherwise expected to succeed.
Though the issue has become a legal minefield, California Democrats who have vowed to make the state a reproductive rights haven aren’t giving up.
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta issued a consumer alert last year, warning of potentially misleading practices by crisis pregnancy centers, and created a new process for Californians to file complaints.
Bonta declined to comment on whether there are any ongoing investigations but said the new complaint portal has been “very helpful” and that his office is “prepared to act” on any violation of the law. That could include prohibitions against companies committing fraudulent business acts.
“We’re not just intent on protecting the reproductive freedom that we have but also expanding it, and part of that is Californians getting and having access to truthful and timely and accurate information about abortion services,” he said.
The industry has gotten harder to regulate as it has moved away from the “egregious” misrepresentations that it was built on, Bonta said.
“They’re moving into more of a gray and ambiguous space, where they’re saying things like, ‘Come in and talk to us about abortion options,’ ” Bonta said. “It’s not necessarily false, it might be misleading, but it’s not a black or white violation.”
In 2018, the Supreme Court blocked enforcement of a California law that would have required all clinics to notify patients that the state offers subsidized abortions, birth control and prenatal care. Known as the Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care and Transparency Act, the bill was sponsored by Vice President Kamala Harris, then state attorney general.
The court’s opinion was led by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who said that the law unfairly targeted faith-based centers by forcing them to provide a “government drafted script” about services they oppose.
Former client Patti speaks about her experience with the SCV Pregnancy Center in Santa Clarita while she was pregnant with her 9-month-old son Liam at a news conference on Wednesday. The event was to voice opposition to legislative attempts to regulate the controversial centers.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Crisis pregnancy centers are central to antiabortion activists’ agenda, said Meghan McGuirk, associate director of state legislative affairs and counsel for the abortion rights organization NARAL. “The anti-choice movement is organized and they know what they’re doing. They are going to use every tool they have to try and undermine access to reproductive healthcare,” she said.
Some centers such as the Mendo Lake Women’s Clinic in Ukiah are expanding their services. The center pledges to work to “erase the need for abortion.”
The facility, licensed by the state as a free clinic, claims on its website that adoption can prevent depression “caused by abortion.” (According to the Journal of the American Medical Assn., research has failed to show abortion has a causal effect on mental health.)
There are at least 165 crisis pregnancy centers in California, and they outnumber abortion clinics, according to a report issued last year by the Alliance, a women’s advocacy collaborative.
The report found that many of those centers make “deceptive and misleading” claims, do not have a physician on staff and offer nondiagnostic ultrasounds that are not recognized as a medical service but as a “keepsake” or souvenir.
While abortion access is protected in California, that also makes the state a target for donors looking for crisis pregnancy centers to support, said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda.) She worries that more pregnancy centers will pop up in rural and low-income neighborhoods, where women may struggle to access care.
An abortion rights supporter holds a sign during a rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington in 2018, as the Supreme Court heard arguments in a free speech fight over California’s attempt to regulate anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.
(Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)
A bill she proposed this year would have potentially opened crisis pregnancy centers up to lawsuits if they advertise using “false or misleading” statements. But the legislation failed.
“There’s no question that this should be stopped,” said Bauer-Kahan, chair of the Select Committee on Reproductive Health. “It is not just conjecture: They are focusing their energy on states like California.”
California law specifically names “alternative birth centers” as a type of specialty clinic eligible to operate in the state. That means a clinic not part of a hospital that provides “comprehensive” services for pregnant women who spend less than 24 hours at the facility, according to state safety code.
Bonta said although some centers are licensed, it doesn’t mean they are without limits. “Just because you’re licensed to do something doesn’t mean you’re licensed to do everything,” he said.
Pregnancy center leaders maintain that they are upfront about the services they do and don’t provide, but women seeking an abortion still get confused — even by clinics licensed by the state.
A young woman in the Sacramento area confirmed her pregnancy at a Planned Parenthood clinic but could not afford the $450 an abortion would cost there without insurance.
Already a mother of a 1-year-old, she found a pregnancy center online, drawn in by its promise of free medical services for women dealing with unplanned pregnancies. The website advertised a consultation that mentioned parenting, adoption and abortion as options.
A Sacramento woman felt duped and shamed by a local crisis pregnancy center when she sought an abortion.
(Jose Luis Villegas/For The Times)
But the center does not actually provide abortions or make referrals for them — which it also states on its website. The woman didn’t realize that until she was already there.
Inside, she was questioned for over an hour about her “lifestyle,” she said. With her boyfriend by her side, a staffer told them that the odds of a couple breaking up because of an abortion are 80%, and that most people regret it.
Ultimately, she miscarried and did not need any services but left feeling “embarrassed and hurt.”
“They shamed me so much in that room,” said the now 29-year-old woman, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons. “Honestly, I had no idea what I was in for. I didn’t know places like this existed. I thought it was just in movies.”
A bill introduced by Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo (D-Chatsworth) would have launched a statewide awareness campaign about any services related to pregnancy care and abortion.
Schiavo said she viewed the bill as noncontroversial and simply informational as it pertained to any relevant facility, not just crisis pregnancy centers. But she made it clear in legislative hearings that they were her top concern, calling them “extremely dangerous.”
The bill drew fierce opposition from conservative groups, including the California Family Council, which held a news conference on Wednesday outside a pregnancy center in Schiavo’s district, accusing her of defamation and of judging an entire industry based on a few bad actors.
Abortion critics, including the California Catholic Conference, said the bill was prejudiced and that the state should instead be thanking the centers for helping vulnerable women.
Schiavo called the outrage “really telling.”
“In California, this is really the only way that anti-choice extremists can promote their agenda. [Centers] can just proliferate and thrive and grow exponentially with no restrictions,” Schiavo said. “Women simply having the facts … it completely undermines their whole business model.”
The Los Angeles City Council put crisis pregnancy centers on alert last year, passing an ordinance that fines them up to $10,000 for false advertisement and allows people to sue if they have been misled.
Kelly Pfeifer, a doctor who has performedabortions for 25 years, is among those urging the state to do the same. She testified to lawmakers earlier this month that some of her patients have been given false ultrasound images by the centers to convince them they are further along in pregnancy than they actually are.
She has had patients cry, worried that they would be infertile because of false information told to them about abortion by people they believed were trustworthy health professionals, she said.
“Every day, I see people who have been harmed by these fake clinics,” Pfeifer said. “In any other part of the healthcare system, this would be inconceivable.”
Heidi Matzke has positioned herself as the face of California’s modern pregnancy center movement. She traveled to Washington, D.C., last year to testify against a federal bill aiming to crack down on the centers, and has railed against Planned Parenthood on Fox News.
Her newest pregnancy center will open soon in Sacramento and looks more like a high-end salon than a medical clinic. The 7,000-square-foot facility is stark white and filled with hot-pink furniture and gold-trimmed mirrors. Thousands of dollars have been spent on security cameras, bulletproof glass and graffiti-resistant paint.
The building alone cost $1.5 million — all from donors.
The official motto of Alternatives Pregnancy Center, which opened in 1983, is to provide women with medical care “and alternatives to abortion as we proclaim the hope of the Gospel.”
It provides gynecological care such as Pap smears and breast exams at no cost — rare for crisis pregnancy centers. But like most centers, it also offers the controversial “abortion pill reversal” and something called “abortion recovery classes.”
“If they choose life, they go through this door,” Matzke says of her clients, pointing to a room full of pristine baby clothes given away free. If they choose abortion, they’ll still be “loved on” and supported, she said.
“A woman is more than just a choice that she makes,” she said.
Matzke is a tireless debater; for every scientific study that casts doubt on her services, she holds up another more obscure study that supports them. It’s Planned Parenthood, not pregnancy centers, that are judging their patients, she insists.
“They want to choose life but they need help and they need support,” Matzke said of her clients. “And so when they find a clinic like ours to support them … then a lot of them will step up and choose life.”
California’s leading Democratic lawmakers have ignored Matzke’s invitations to visit her clinics, leery of giving a microphone to her cause. But the license granted to her from the state they represent hangs clearly in her lobby, framed with gold prongs to match her new decor.