The Supreme Court's 'other' ruling is one conservatives and liberals should cheer

Tuesday was a day that showed elections matter, as the U.S. Supreme Court did exactly what Republicans hoped for when they voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Led by Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch, the justices issued rulings on abortion and the president's travel ban that conservatives could cheer.

One ruling was especially heralded — and decried: A 5-4 decision that upheld Trump's ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries. In that ruling, the justices cited "rational basis review" to say that while there might be a troubling reason (religious discrimination) the president wanted a travel ban, there also is a reasonable one (improved vetting) that's enough to allow him the power to secure our borders.

We disagree. The court's disregard of Trump's bigoted intent — stated clearly in presidential tweets and speeches — sets a troubling precedent in which Trump or any president can set purposefully discriminatory policy so long as there is a veneer of legitimacy to it. But while the conservative court seemed to cherry-pick the principle that fit the travel ban ruling it wanted, the court's other decision Tuesday was one conservatives and liberals both should applaud.

In that decision, the court said that the state of California can't require that anti-abortion "health" clinics supply women with information about the availability of abortions. The case involved religiously oriented "crisis pregnancy centers" that often used deceptive counseling and advertising — some portrayed themselves as health clinics despite having no doctors or nurses — to steer women toward parenting and adoption. The deceit didn't rise to the level of fraud, however, so California couldn't shut the centers down. Instead, lawmakers required the centers to post or otherwise provide women with notice about other pregnancy options and services, including abortion.

That mandate, said the court, was a violation of the First Amendment, which limits the government's ability to force people to say things at odds with their beliefs. Although the state has a substantial interest in ensuring that women know all of their pregnancy options, the court said there were other ways to provide that information that didn't involve compelling people to say what the state wanted women to hear.

North Carolinians should be familiar with the concept. In 2015, the Supreme Court upheld a federal court ruling that struck down a North Carolina law requiring doctors to perform an ultrasound and convey the results to women seeking an abortion. That 2011 law, passed by the Republican-led legislature, was ruled unconstitutional because it forced doctors to parrot the state's beliefs.

We agreed then. The N.C. law, we said, was "an attempt to foist on women a state-sponsored ideological message. That's wrong." It also was wrong in California, regardless of your ideology or convictions about abortion. The court may have decided Tuesday that the president's words don't count for much, but at least the justices still think the people's words are worth protecting.

This story was originally published June 27, 2018 at 11:20 AM.