State to pay to settle pregnancy center lawsuits

The state has agreed to pay more than $60,000 to resolve two federal lawsuits that successfully challenged a state law requiring religiously affiliated pregnancy centers to inform women about publicly funded contraception and other family planning serv­ices.

That law was passed in 2017 and signed by Gov. David Ige. It was immediately challenged by Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor, doing business as A Place for Women in Waipio, and the Aloha Pregnancy Care and Counseling Center Inc.

Act 200 was modeled after a similar California law known as the Reproductive FACT Act, and it required limited-service “crisis pregnancy centers” to inform their clients that Hawaii has publicly funded programs that provide free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services.

According to a committee report filed by lawmakers, the new requirements would “help ensure that all women in the state can quickly obtain the information and serv­ices that they need to make and implement informed, timely, and personally appropriate reproductive decisions.”

But the lawsuits alleged the law was unconstitutional because it violated the centers’ First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion. It also alleged the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, and the Hawaii Constitution.

According to a filing by Aloha Pregnancy Center, the new law compelled the centers “to disseminate a message crafted by the govern- ment in a manner dictated by the government. The substance of that message is an advertisement for state family planning services programs that include free or low-cost access to contraceptive services and abortion.”

The center is a faith-based operation established to help mothers “choose life for their unborn children,” and objects to both contraceptives and abortions, according to the lawsuit.

“While the state is certainly free to advertise these programs through its own or purchased media and serv­ices, it cannot coerce Aloha into advertising these same programs on the state’s behalf,” according to the lawsuit.

A similar lawsuit challenging the California law was already pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the pregnancy centers did not comply with the Hawaii law while they waited for a ruling from the high court. Violations of the Hawaii law were punishable by fines of up to $500, or $1,000 for repeat offenses, but the state did not attempt to enforce it.

The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision on June 26 that the California law likely violated the First Amendment, and “after the Supreme Court issued its decision, there was little choice but to resolve the matter without further litigation,” according to testimony from the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office.

House Bill 942 would earmark $40,000 to settle the Calvary Chapel case and $20,344 to settle the Aloha Pregnancy center lawsuit.