A decision on regulations lodged against New York City pregnancy help centers could impact the rest of the nation.
Among other things, the New York ordinance requires pro-life pregnancy centers to post and include in their advertising that they do not offer abortions and birth control.
Attorney Matt Bowman of Alliance Defending Freedom tells OneNewsNow the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paid close attention to arguments concerning the ordinance.
"I think the court had a lot of good questions," he says. "The judges disagreed with each other about some of the questions but they all had read the issues, and I think they were really confronted with the fact that to uphold this law you would have to allow the government to force people to say things because the government disagrees with them politically."
New York makes no requirements of abortion clinics as to signs they have to post or their advertising. Bowman adds that if the Second Circuit rules against the pregnancy centers, the case will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"So this is a decision that is going to affect millions of people, and other courts of appeal that are hearing these cases are going to look at whether they're going to allow political interests of the abortion industry to use the government to force pro-life people to say things just because they want to offer help to women," he observes.
Bowman and Alliance Defending Freedom are hopeful the appeals court will uphold the lower court's decision that the New York ordinance is unconstitutional.