Protecting Pregnancy Centers From Government Coercion

The American Council supports H3012, the Pregnancy Center Autonomy and Rights of Expression (CARE) Act, and urges every South Carolina legislator to vote yes. Pregnancy centers serve women, children, and families with practical care rooted in the conviction that every life has inherent dignity. These organizations deserve the freedom to operate consistently with that conviction, free from government coercion.

H3012 establishes clear, codified protections for pregnancy centers by prohibiting the State and all of its subdivisions and officials from requiring a pregnancy center to perform or offer abortions, distribute abortion-inducing drugs or contraception, refer patients for those services, or counsel in favor of them. The bill also bars the government from requiring pregnancy centers to post materials promoting or providing information about obtaining abortions. These are not abstract protections; they respond to a real and growing pattern of government pressure on mission-driven organizations to act against their foundational commitments.

Equally important, H3012 forbids the government from stripping a pregnancy center of its ability to provide services simply because it declines to perform, refer, or counsel for abortion. Under the bill, pregnancy centers cannot be cut off from providing pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting services, from distributing practical goods such as diapers, baby clothes, and formula, or from offering medical testing and counseling, solely on the basis of their pro-life stance. We believe that penalizing good-faith service to women and families is an injustice this bill rightly corrects.

H3012 also protects the organizational integrity of pregnancy centers by prohibiting government interference with their hiring and staffing decisions. Requiring a mission-driven nonprofit to employ persons who reject its core commitments would hollow out its identity from within. The bill's protections for staffing autonomy honor the constitutional and moral reality that an organization's ability to pursue its mission depends on who carries it out.

To give these protections meaning, H3012 creates a private right of action for any pregnancy center or aggrieved party harmed by a violation. A prevailing plaintiff may recover treble actual damages with a floor of ten thousand dollars, plus attorney's fees and costs. Those remedies are cumulative and are not capped or displaced by other available remedies under federal, state, or municipal law. A severability clause also ensures that a legal challenge to one provision cannot unravel the protections that remain valid. Together these enforcement provisions make the bill's guarantees durable and real.

The American Council calls on every member of the South Carolina General Assembly to pass H3012 without delay. Pregnancy centers pour compassion and resources into the hardest moments of women's lives. They deserve the law's protection, and the families they serve deserve the assurance that those centers will remain free to help them.