On Tuesday afternoon, the Supreme Court blocked a state law that required anti-abortion pregnancy centers to provide information regarding affordable, publicly funded abortion information to pregnant women.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, originally upheld the law, with presiding Judge Dorothy W. Nelson writing that the centers in question, which encouraged women to consider parenting or adoption, offered “intentionally deceptive advertising and counseling practices that often confuse, misinform, and even intimidate women from making fully informed, time-sensitive decisions about critical health care,” according to the New York Times.
RELATED: Supreme Court Rules Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers Don’t Have to Share Abortion Information
In a 5-4 decision, SCOTUS blocked the law, citing the centers’s First Amendment rights. Given that half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, this is a decision that did not go unnoticed and un-protested.
In light of the ruling, we’ve compiled five resources for reliable, truthful information about all of the options available to pregnant people, including where to find prenatal and childbirth care, navigating adoption, and seeking abortion—which is a constitutionally protected medical procedure.
All-Options
As its name suggests, All-Options aims to not only provide women with the information they need to weigh all of their options regarding unintended pregnancy, but to do so in a judgment-free manner. The organization “uses direct service and social change strategies to promote unconditional, judgment-free support for people in all of their decisions, feelings, and experiences with pregnancy, parenting, abortion, and adoption,” reads the All-Options website. In addition to providing information, the organization also has two hotlines: The first, Talkline, is a place to chat through possible options, and the second, called “Faith Aloud,” provides clergy counseling.
The website also features links to other resources like the Abortion Care Network, the National Federation of Abortion (which is also available in Spanish) and the Planned Parenthood Federation, all of which can help point you to the closest clinic.
NARAL Pro-Choice America
NARAL Pro-Choice America is an organization founded in 1977 which is “fighting for access to abortion care, birth control, paid parental leave and protections from pregnancy discrimination,” according to its website. The nationwide, 1.2 million-member group’s website not only provides information on resources available to women, but also breaks down how laws (which are changing everyday, it seems) affect women’s access to these resources—from TRAP laws that regulate how abortion providers operate, to the aforementioned regulation of “crisis pregnancy centers,” which don’t provide abortion at all.
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood centers provide women with a range of health services, from cancer screenings and birth control prescriptions to regular ObGyn checkups—in addition to the abortion services for which they get so much press. It’s the nation’s largest provider of sex education, according to their website. Click here to find your nearest center and speak to a professional.
Guttmacher Institute
Guttmacher Institute is a 50-year-old research organization which has partnered with the likes of Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University and the World Health Organization to provide accurate and up-to-date information on reproductive health and health care. While the organization does not provide specific resources for family planning, it does offer analyses of policy trends, as well as extensive information on everything from the cost of unintended pregnancies to demographic data that illustrates the effect of various anti-choice policies.
Bedsider
While Bedsider’s primary focus is preventing pregnancy—providing comprehensive information on all birth control methods, including their effectiveness, their side effects, and first-person accounts—they also have information regarding what to do should birth control fail that is just as all-encompassing. Click here to find more information.
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