Court Opinion

ID: 9479603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:23:03.146998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:08.916022
License: Public Domain

RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Based on the wide discretion Congress accorded the President to furnish assistance for voluntary population planning abroad “on such terms and conditions as he may determine,” 22 U.S.C. § 2151b(b) (1982), I concur in the court’s disposition of plaintiffs’ statutory claims. I dissent, however, from my colleagues’ rulings on the constitutional aspects of this case. In accord with the district court, I conclude that the Agency for International Development (AID) has unconstitutionally deployed its puissant purse to restrain the privately-funded speech and association of domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in family planning work overseas, NGOs here exemplified by plaintiff DKT Memorial Fund, Ltd. (DKT). Because AID respect for the first amendment rights of domestic grantees should assure the relief all plaintiffs seek, I would pretermit the question whether our government officers have overstepped constitutional limitations on their authority with respect to foreign NGOs, here exemplified by plaintiffs Parivar Seva Sanstha (PSS), an Indian nonprofit society, and Population Services Family Planning Programmes, Ltd. (PSE, for Population Services Europe), a United Kingdom charity.
I.
The situation stateside is not in dispute. On the one hand, government need not spend public funds on abortion services; it may, instead, encourage the indigent pregnant woman to reproduce by paying the full medical costs of childbirth, Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980), as well as child support thereafter. On the other hand, government may not deter private action; it may not deny public funding available for non-abortion related family planning to otherwise qualified domestic organizations that *300use their privately-raised funds for lawful abortion-related services. Planned Parenthood v. Arizona, 789 F.2d 1348 (9th Cir.), aff'd mem. sub nom. Babbitt v. Planned Parenthood Fed’n, 479 U.S. 925, 107 S.Ct. 391, 93 L.Ed.2d 346 (1986). Government may demand only that public funds be segregated by the grantee so that they are used solely for the specified family planning services, and not for abortion-related activity.
The same arrangement is effective when foreign nations themselves seek family planning assistance. If those nations “support abortion with funds not provided by the United States government,” they nonetheless qualify as grantees; “the United States will contribute to such nations [for family planning programs] through segregated accounts which cannot be used for abortion.” Policy Statement of the United States of America at the United Nations International Conference on Population (Second Session) Mexico, August 6-13, 1984, at 4-5 [Mexico City Policy Statement]. Domestic NGOs, as well, qualify for family planning grants for programs abroad, so long as they hold federal funds separate from any funds they raise and use for abortion-related services. See Brief for Appellees-Cross-Appellants at 9. These accommodations too, like the stateside situation, are not at issue in this case.
Addressing foreign NGOs, however, our government speaks in a different, dissonant voice. For those organizations, there is no accommodation, no tolerance for what the organization would elect to do with other resources available to it, whether from private donations or contributions by foreign governments. To receive AID funds, either indirectly as subgrantee of a domestic NGO or directly as grantee, the foreign NGO must agree in writing “that it will not, while receiving assistance under th[e] grant, perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in AJ.D.-recipient countries or provide financial support to other foreign nongovernmental organizations that conduct such activities.” AID Handbook 13 (Grants), effective June 19, 1987, at 4C-49 (Ineligibility of Foreign Nongovernment Organizations That Perform or Actively Promote Abortion as a Method of Family Planning) (governing subgrantees); see id. at 4C-48 (agreement by subgranting domestic NGO); id. at 4D-54, effective Jan. 1, 1987 (certification by foreign NGO as direct grantee). It is not enough that the foreign NGO, in common with the nation it serves, agree that no grant funds will be used to cover abortion-related expenditures; the condition is that the foreign NGO will not venture into the abortion service, counseling, or referral area at all. That condition, covering the foreign NGO’s allocation of funds supplied by donors other than the United States, is the one — the only one— contested in this litigation.
There is no pretense on AID’s part, however, that the policy in question affects only foreign NGOs. The policy impacts powerfully on domestic NGOs like plaintiff DKT that use their own private resources to enable poor women, at home and abroad, to gain access to abortion services. The AID condition effectively picks off or buys up the audience or associates abroad that organizations like DKT must have if they are to act in the international arena.1 In so *301doing, the condition runs afoul of constitutional limitations. As government counsel candidly acknowledged at oral argument, AID informs the foreign NGO: “If you are going to work on [a family planning] project with U.S. dollars, then you must agree to shun DKT to the extent that DKT seeks an alliance with you to provide abortion counseling.” A condition thus designed to entice away DKT’s audience and allies is unconstitutional. See generally Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 78 S.Ct. 1332, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460 (1958); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969); Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 597, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972); Sullivan, Unconstitutional Conditions, 102 Harv.L.Rev. 1413 (1989).2
The district court spoke concretely with reference to the instant case. DKT currently ventures jointly with foreign NGOs like PSE and PSS to provide birth control information and services to impoverished women abroad. Using non-AID funds, these organizations cooperate in the provision of information about, and access to, abortion. The current AID restrictions, however,
impair the associational rights of DKT. In order to qualify for AID funding, PSE and PSS would be required to terminate [the] non-AID funded abortion programs in which DKT participates, thereby preventing DKT from implementing those programs in association with PSE and PSS.
DKT Memorial Fund Ltd. v. AID, 691 F.Supp. 394, 405 (D.D.C.1988). Even if PSE and PSS resist the attraction of the U.S. dollars, and the good work one can accomplish with those funds, it is hardly a matter for “speculation” that other foreign NGOs will steer clear of DKT’s privately-funded abortion counseling to avoid jeopardizing AID eligibility. See supra note 3
*302It does not answer DKT’s constitutional objection to say that the domestic NGO can go it alone, that DKT can spend its own (privately-raised) funds abroad as it will. See Brief for Appellees-Cross-Appellants at 34 (acknowledging that cutting off domestic NGOs from all AID funds if they deal with foreign NGOs that offer abortion-related services would effectively punish domestic NGOs “for exercising their constitutional rights of free speech and free association in conjunction with foreign NGO[s]”). A reality not debated by AID attends the grave question whether our government, without offense to the first amendment, can deprive DKT of its foreign partners through the lure of AID funds.4 As recognized by the district court: “ ‘[F]ew foreign family planning programs of any magnitude can be conducted by domestic organizations without the assistance of foreign organizations.’ ” 691 F.Supp. at 404 (quoting Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment and Reply to Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment at 36).
The prominence of AID in population control assistance abroad is apparent. Through AID, “the United States continues to be the largest single donor of international population assistance, contributing more than 40 percent of the total $500 million provided by all donors in 1986.” Declaration of John J. Dumm, Deputy Director of the Office of Population of AID, December 30, 1987, at 5, reproduced in Joint Appendix at 123. AID confirms that “more population assistance continues to be provided through nongovernmental organizations than through foreign governments.” Id.
Several domestic NGOs, filing as amici in this case, observed that “foreign NGOs that are the most respected and prominent spokespersons on family planning issues in their own countries — and therefore the most effective partners for [organizations like] DKT — are also AID recipients, because the U.S. organizations have selected them for subgranting as best able to use resources successfully.” Brief of Amici Curiae at 15. Furthermore, “[e]ven foreign NGOs that do not now receive AID funds are reluctant to work with [domestic NGOs on abortion-related services], because the foreign NGOs hope to receive AID funds in the future.” Id. at i; see supra note 1. The government labels “voluntary,” however, the decision of a foreign NGO to decline to participate in abortion-related projects in order “to associate with the U.S. population planning program.” Reply Brief for Appellees-Cross-Appellants at 12. The label “voluntary,” as unconstitutional condition doctrine makes plain, obscures or begs the question: may *303AID, in full view of the predictable effect on domestic NGOs like DKT, and compatibly with constitutional constraints, put foreign NGOs to Hobson’s choice.
The first amendment secures to persons in the United States the respect of our government for their right to communicate and associate with foreign individuals and organizations, as well as with individuals and organizations stateside.5 Indeed, the first federal law the Supreme Court ever held violative of the first amendment involved a condition on international correspondence — a restraint on delivery of mail from abroad. Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301, 85 S.Ct. 1493, 14 L.Ed.2d 398 (1965) (invalidating statute that required Post Office to detain and deliver only on addressee’s recorded request foreign mailings of “communist political propaganda”); see Bullfrog Films, Inc. v. Wick, 847 F.2d 502, 509 n. 9 (9th Cir.1988) (“ ‘[T]here can be no question that, in the absence of some overriding governmental interest such as national security, the First Amendment protects communications with foreign audiences to the same extent as communications within our borders.’ ”) (quoting and affirming 646 F.Supp. 492, 502 (C.D.Cal.1986)).
DKT’s case rests on the freedom to communicate, to receive communications, and to maintain associations, at home and abroad, that United States residents enjoy vis-a-vis the United States government. Abortion counseling compatible with governing law is sheltered speech, just as antiabortion counseling is. See Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U.S. 809, 95 S.Ct. 2222, 44 L.Ed.2d 600 (1975). But DKT’s right to inform and to counsel on lawful access to abortion is surely diminished, and the employment of the organization’s own resources is surely restrained, when our government denies benefits to, or withdraws benefits from, foreign organizations that find DKT’s speech persuasive and therefore would join DKT in informing and counseling women in need about abortion allowed by law. Cf. Riley v. National Fed’n of the Blind, Inc., — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 2667, 2680 n. 13, 101 L.Ed.2d 669 (1988) (licensing requirement for professional fundraisers for charities held to violate first amendment rights of charities because “[r]egulating these fundraisers ... affects the speech of the clients or causes with which they are associated”); Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414, 108 S.Ct. 1886, 1892, 100 L.Ed.2d 425 (1988) (prohibition on paying circulators of initiative petitions imper-missibly restricts political expression because “it limits the number of voices who will convey [the proponents’] message ... and, therefore, limits the size of the audience they can reach”).
II.
Endeavoring to establish that, in this instance, our government can “manipulate[ ] out of existence” “guaranties [of freedom of speech and association] embedded in the Constitution of the United States,” see Frost & Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Comm’n, 271 U.S. 583, 594, 46 S.Ct. 605, 607, 70 L.Ed. 1101 (1926), government counsel cites cases that are readily distinguished. One so featured case is Lyng v. International Union, UAW, 485 U.S. 360, 108 S.Ct. 1184, 99 L.Ed.2d 380 (1988), which upheld a Food Stamp Act provision denying eligibility to households that had become needy because a household member was on strike. The Court there rejected claims that the provision unconstitutionally impinged upon rights of free speech and association by deterring worker-union solidarity and driving strikers out of their family abode. The Court stressed, however, that *304the projected effects on family living arrangements and union affiliation were, as a practical matter, “exceedingly unlikely” to result from the challenged government action. Id. 108 S.Ct. at 1189, 1190 (quoting Lyng v. Castillo, 477 U.S. 635, 638, 106 S.Ct. 2727, 2728, 91 L.Ed.2d 527 (1986)). Indeed, even the dissenters did not find government “coercion” present. Instead, they maintained that the provision so ineffectively served the government’s asserted ends that it lacked rationality. See id. 108 5.Ct. at 1198-2000 (Marshall, J., dissenting). Furthermore, the Lyng Court found critical to its decision the congressional objective to avoid the perception of government partiality, the appearance through food stamp subsidization of “undue favoritism to one side ... in private labor disputes.” Id. 108 S.Ct. at 1192. Here, it cannot be said that the “deterrent effect” on foreign NGO association with DKT is “unlikely,” see supra pp. 300-03, nor is the government motivated by a concern to maintain neutrality, to avoid any tilt toward one or another contending party.
Neither Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 92 S.Ct. 2576, 33 L.Ed.2d 683 (1972), nor Palestine Information Office v. Shultz, 853 F.2d 932 (D.C.Cir.1988), stands for any broad rule that our government may impede as it will the international communications and associations of U.S. residents. The former case involved denial of a visa to a Belgian Marxist invited to attend academic conferences in the United States; the Court underscored that upholding the government’s action there turned precisely on the “plenary congressional power to make policies and rules for exclusion of aliens.” 408 U.S. at 769-70, 92 S.Ct. at 2585.6 The latter case trained on the government’s large interest in severing ties with a terrorist organization, an interest which outweighed the plaintiffs’ asserted free speech right to act as the foreign mission of the Palestine Liberation Organization. We stressed there that the office closing ordered by the State Department did not prevent any parties “from expressing any thought or making any statement they could have made before” the closure; instead, the contested order simply and only blocked the complainants “from speaking in the capacity of a foreign mission of the PLO.” 853 F.2d at 939 (emphasis in original).
III.
As earlier indicated, see supra p. 299, government may proscribe use of public funds to perform abortions. Webster v. Reproductive Health Servs., — U.S. -, -, 109 S.Ct. 3040, 3050-53, 106 L.Ed.2d 410 (1989); Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980).7 But that authority does not over*305ride the right of members of the U.S. polity to use their own funds to advocate, counsel, or encourage abortion as a facet of comprehensive world population planning. See Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Secretary of Health & Human Servs., No. 88-1279, slip op. at 56-59 (1st Cir. May 8, 1989) (Torruella, J., concurring in part). The Supreme Court indicated in Regan v. Taxation With Representation (TWR), 461 U.S. 540, 103 S.Ct. 1997, 76 L.Ed.2d 129 (1983), how peaceful coexistence or accommodation of government authority and private right can be achieved. In that case, the Court upheld government subsidization of the political lobbying of veterans’ organizations, but of no other organizations, through rules allowing only veterans’ organizations to use tax-deductible contributions for lobbying. But the Court hardly opened the door to government inhibition of lobbying with private funds by organizations that received public subsidies for other activities. On the contrary, as cogently explained in commentary:
The structure of the Internal Revenue Code made it possible [for government to respect political expression by diverse private entities without either subsidizing or inhibiting it], since the Code permitted organizations eligible for tax-deductible contributions under § 501(c)(3) to retain that status while setting up financially independent but wholly controlled § 501(c)(4) lobbying arms that would conduct lobbying directed by their § 501(c)(3) affiliates but funded without benefit of any taxpayer-assisted dollars.
L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 784 (2d ed. 1988). The commentary concludes that this bifurcated arrangement, which the Supreme Court noted, 461 U.S. at 544, and the concurring opinion emphasized as crucial, id. at 552-53 (Blackmun, J., concurring), “should be regarded as indispensable to the Regan v. TWR holding.” L. Tribe, supra, at 784.
Accommodation of the very same order has been made regarding abortion-related programs of domestic NGOs and with respect to foreign government population programs. See supra pp. 299-300. Those entities may receive federal funds for non-abortion related family planning so long as they segregate the United States funds from abortion-related expenditures.8 Indeed, as earlier observed, see supra p. 302, the government recognizes that cutting off domestic NGOs from all AID funds if they deal with foreign NGOs that offer abortion-related services would amount to punishing domestic NGOs “for exercising their constitutional rights of free speech and free association in conjunction with foreign NGO[s].” See Brief for Appellees-Cross-Appellants at 34. It is possible to deny to foreign NGOs the essential accommodation made to foreign governments and domestic NGOs only if two premises are indulged. First, one must hold that the Constitution —or, at least, the first amendment in significant measure — does not follow the flag when U.S. officials deal with foreign persons. Second, and most vital to my analysis, one must agree that the first amendment does not stop AID from handicapping or burdening domestic NGOs by instructing the foreign NGO: as a condition of any U.S. family planning grant, you must “shun [U.S. private organizations like DKT] to the extent [they] seek[] an alliance with you to provide abortion counseling.” See supra p. 301.
It is too late in the day to argue that the segregated funds solution is illusory because any United States funding “frees up” funds from other sources. It is now settled that when
*306the government makes the availability of funding dependent upon the restriction of activities paid for through private sources, the government requirements then become impermissible penalties on protected expression. FCC v. League of Women Voters, 468 U.S. 364, 399-401, 104 S.Ct. 3106, 3127, 82 L.Ed.2d 278 (1984)....
Recent abortion-related cases further emphasize this point. Courts consistently have struck down regulations which attempt to curtail constitutional activities funded through private sources, by making federal grants and subsidies conditional upon the termination of these activities.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Secretary of Health & Human Servs., slip op. at 57, 58 (Torruella, J., concurring in part, joined by Selya, J.) (several citations omitted).
The Supreme Court’s 1986 summary affirmance in Planned Parenthood v. Arizona, cited supra p. 300, confirms the lower court consensus. In that case, Planned Parenthood successfully sought an injunction against a state law prohibiting state funds for family planning “to agencies or entities which offer ‘abortions, abortion procedures, counseling for abortion procedures or abortion referrals.’ ” 789 F.2d at 1349-50 (quoting 1980 Ariz.Sess.Laws 842, 860 n. *). The state urged that the encompassing prohibition was necessary to assure the efficacy of the ban on use of state funds for abortion-related services. Id. at 1350-51. The Ninth Circuit, however, observed that Planned Parenthood had previously “successfully segregated state funds from its abortion-related expenditures.” Id. at 1351. That court firmly rejected the position that “any expenditure on abortion-related activities necessarily is derived from state funds” to the extent that those funds constitute a portion of the recipient’s budget. Id. at 1350 (emphasis in original).
IV.
Even if the first amendment comes into play because of the handicap or burden placed on the speech and associations of DKT and like-minded domestic NGOs, the government maintains, the Mexico City Policy reflects a superior interest: the “worldwide view” shared by countries round the globe, of the respect society owes to “human life at its most vulnerable, human life still unborn.” Reply Brief for Appellees-Cross-Appellants at 13, 14 (quoting from 23 Weekly Comp.Pres.Doc. 879-80 (July 30, 1987)). “It must be remembered,” the government cautions, “that abortion is illegal in many countries and is repugnant to the cultural and moral values of large segments of the world population with whom the United States must conduct its foreign affairs.” Id. at 14.
I do not reach the question whether a policy tailored to avoid offending our neighbors in the world community would pass muster. The policy here at issue is not so refined. Strikingly overbroad, it encompasses relations with NGOs in countries where abortion is legal, where abortion-related services are regarded as a necessary last resort given current conditions of poverty, ignorance, physical insecurity, and fear in which many women live. While a purpose to avoid antagonizing foreign nations is not rationally served by a gross approach, just such a purpose is advanced by segregated accounts, as the framers of the Mexico City Policy recognized when they stated: “[W]hen dealing with nations which support abortion with funds not provided by the United States Government, the United States will contribute to such nations through segregated accounts which cannot be used for abortion.” Mexico City Policy Statement at 4-5.
The government additionally objects that the segregated accounts solution “would render the Mexico City Policy redundant,” for “all NGO[s] are forbidden by 22 U.S.C. § 2151b(f) from using U.S. funds for abortion or promotion of abortion and appellants do not challenge that prohibition.” Brief for Appellees-Cross-Appellants at 37. But the Mexico City Policy itself draws no distinction between foreign and domestic NGOs. It reads: “[T]he United *307States will no longer contribute to separate non-governmental organizations which perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.” Mexico City Policy Statement at 5. AID thought it compatible with that policy and with constitutional limitations to allow domestic NGOs to counsel abortion abroad so long as they use no U.S. grant funds for that activity. It would be no less compatible with our national policy and Constitution to read the same words as meaning the same thing when applied to each “separate nongovernmental organization[ ],” whether domestic or foreign. See Planned Parenthood Fed’n v. AID, 838 F.2d 649, 656 (2d Cir.1988) (Mexico City Policy Statement “could be implemented in a number of alternative ways without compromising AID’s policy, such as contributing to NGOs through segregated accounts, as AID does in its government-to-government dealings”).
In sum, once it is recognized that our government may not stop domestic NGOs from counseling abortion abroad with funds they raise privately, it follows that government may not impede, without compelling cause, the domestic NGO’s access to an audience, adherents, and associates among foreign NGOs. Because AID’s present policy does so block domestic NGOs from fruitful communication and association, I would hold that policy incompatible with the first amendment.
V.
My analysis of the rights of the domestic organization DKT would resolve the instant controversy completely, rendering it unnecessary to decide whether the first amendment limits the actions of U.S. officials in their dealings with foreign parties, here PSS and PSE.9 Because both my colleagues and the district court addressed that issue and ruled against the foreign NGO’s claims to constitutional protection, I will indicate briefly why I find that disposition troublesome.10
If our land is one “of freedom, of equal opportunity, of religious tolerance, and of good will for other peoples who share our aspirations,” it is in no small measure so because our Constitution restrains all officialdom from infringing on fundamental human rights; just as our flag “carries its message ... both at home and abroad,” so *308does our Constitution and the values it expresses. Cf. Texas v. Johnson, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 2556, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989) (Stevens, J., dissenting). In an endeavor to restate United States law in point, the American Law Institute has published this black letter text:
Applicability op Constitutional Safeguards
The provisions of the United States Constitution safeguarding individual rights generally control the United States government in the conduct of its foreign relations as well as in domestic matters, and generally limit governmental authority whether it is exercised in the United States or abroad, and whether such authority is exercised unilaterally or by international agreement.
Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 721 (1987). True, the matter “has not been authoritatively adjudicated” in respect of aliens outside the United States. Id. § 722 comment m & reporters’ note 16; see also id. § 721 comment b & reporters’ notes 1 and 2. There is, however, continuing support for the ideal that “wherever the United States acts, ‘it can only act in accordance with the limitations imposed by the Constitution.’ ” Id. § 721 reporters’ note 1 (quoting Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 6, 77 S.Ct. 1222, 1225, 1 L.Ed.2d 1148 (1957) (plurality opinion of Black, J.)); see United States v. Tiede, 86 F.R.D. 227 (U.S. Court for Berlin 1979) (foreign national accused of hijacking Polish aircraft abroad was tried under German substantive law in Berlin in a court created by United States; U.S. court held foreign national entitled to jury trial as a matter of constitutional right). I would hesitate long before holding that in a United States-foreign citizen encounter, the amendment we prize as “first” has no force in court.
Conclusion
The handicap our government has placed on DKT’s speech and associations is repugnant to the first amendment. I therefore dissent from the court’s judgment.

. This reality is documented by the eleven “population amici” who joined in a brief to this court: the Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception; the Centre for Development and Population Activities; the Center for Population and Family Health; Family Health International; Alan Guttmacher Institute; International Projects Assistance Services; International Women's Health Coalition; the Pathfinder Fund; the Population Council; the Population Crisis Committee; Planned Parenthood Federation of America. These domestic NGOs reported finding that AID’s extraordinary condition on grants and subgrants to foreign NGOs blocked the domestic NGOs "from associating, for purposes of speech relating to abortion, with many of the most logical and effective potential foreign partners in such speech." Brief of Amici Curiae at i, viii.
The Center for Population and Family Health (CPFH), for example, is a “research center of Columbia University that conducts research, training and policy work on population issues in developing countries, especially in Africa." Id. at ii. CPFH states that AID’S restraint on foreign NGOs “has ... meant that private groups in Africa that might work with CPFH, using private funds, on expanding abortion rights have been unwilling to do so because it *301will disqualify them from receiving AID funding.” Id. at iii. The Population Council relates: "A privately funded Council project on septic and incomplete abortions has been stymied because of concern by the prospective foreign NGO partner that participating might jeopardize its AID eligibility.” Id. at vi.
These clear statements by major domestic NGOs refer to actual, not hypothetical, situations. The court, in short, is dead wrong in asserting that amici are organizations in the main primarily "dedicated to the general pursuit of First Amendment goals” rather than to family planning. Court’s Opinion at 296 n. 7. My brethren err as conspicuously in pretending that "[a]t most, plaintiffs and amici” posit "the fleeing FNGOs” only hypothetically. See Court’s Opinion at 296-97.

. See abo infra note 6.
The court lapses again when it equates this case not to Sherbert v. Verner or Shapiro v. Thompson, but to Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U.S. 555, 575, 104 S.Ct. 1211, 1222, 79 L.Ed.2d 516 (1984). See Court’s Opinion at 295-296. The petitioner in that case, Grove City College, resisted compliance with a federal law, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, prohibiting sex discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal assistance. As a last ditch argument, the college asserted that "conditioning federal assistance on compliance with Title IX infringes First Amendment rights of the College and its students.” Grove City College, 465 U.S. at 575, 104 S.Ct. at 1222. The Supreme Court swiftly rejected the plea. Id. at 575-76, 104 S.Ct. at 1222-23. DKT matches Grove City College, my colleagues say, and the foreign NGOs match the students. Court's Opinion at 296. These are mismatches, for abortion (or anti-abortion) counseling is speech sheltered by the first amendment, see Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U.S. 809, 95 S.Ct. 2222, 44 L.Ed.2d 600 (1975), while discriminating adversely on the basis of race, national origin, religion or sex is not one’s constitutional right. As our sister court observed in the Grove City College litigation:
[T]he first amendment does not provide private individuals or institutions the right to engage in discrimination. Thus, neither Grove nor its students can assert an alleged first amendment right to be free of the strictures of Title IX’s prohibitions of gender discrimination and also claim the right to continued federal funding.
Grove City College v. Bell, 687 F.2d 684, 702 (3d Cir.1982), aff’d, 465 U.S. 555, 104 S.Ct. 1211, 79 L.Ed.2d 516 (1984); see abo Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 103 S.Ct. 2017, 76 L.Ed.2d 157 (1983).

. If there is any genuine doubt whatever of the "ripeness” of this case, see Court’s Opinion at 296-99, the instant dismissal solution is surely an arbitrary, wholly unwarranted response. The notion that this case is "fictitious," "hypothetical,” meet only for a law school exam, id. at 296, 297, and so "not ripe” for adjudication, surfaces for the very first time in my *302brethren’s extended essay. Ripeness was not raised by AID, nor was it considered by the district court. This is altogether understandable, for last time around, we instructed the district court to attend to the issue of standing with dispatch, then the sole remaining threshold issue, so that "the parties may address ... [the plaintiffs'] substantive challenges.” DKT Memorial Fund, Ltd. v. AID, 810 F.2d 1236, 1239 (D.C.Cir.1987).
It is a matter of simple justice in our system for a party to be given fair notice and an opportunity to be heard before the boom is lowered. Cf. Harman v. Valley Nat'l Bank, 339 F.2d 564, 567 (9th Cir.1964) (lack of detail does not warrant complaint dismissal where there is a prospect for requesting and obtaining pretrial a more definite statement). Plaintiffs have not had that fair opportunity here. It defies reason to say that plaintiffs having had ample opportunity to address the sole threshold issue in view — standing—and having done so with substantial success, they are not to be tossed out peremptorily with no opportunity ever to explain why their cause is indeed ripe. Compare supra note 1 with Court's Opinion at 298. See also 28 U.S.C. § 1653 (amendment of pleadings to show jurisdiction may be allowed in trial or appellate courts). To test the validity of a view raised by a judge sua sponte, the parties ought generally to be invited to address the matter through supplemental briefing. See, e.g., Siegelman v. Cunard White Star, Ltd., 221 F.2d 189, 197 (2d Cir.1955); cf. Sanders v. International Ass’n of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers, 546 F.2d 879, 882 (10th Cir.1976); Kanelos v. Kettler, 406 F.2d 951, 954-55 n. 15 (D.C.Cir.1968).

. My colleagues refer to those who take the U.S. dollars and the pledge that goes with it as “DKT’s fair-weather foreign associates.” Court’s Opinion at 294. I would not so characterize the hard decision confronting foreign NGOs operating in communities with poverty so dire and conditions for women so low we cannot comprehend their situation.

. My colleagues question the constitutional right of organizations, as distinguished from individuals, to associate together. See Court’s Opinion at 294-95. Each organization, however, can advance the rights of the individuals it represents. It is not revealed to me why, in this instance, the whole (the organization) should count for less than the sum of its parts (its members and supporters). Cf. Brown v. Socialist Workers '74 Campaign Comm., 459 U.S. 87, 98, 103 S.Ct. 416, 423, 74 L.Ed.2d 250 (1982) (“the First Amendment interests of minor parties and their members and supporters” bar disclosure of campaign disbursements; naming disbursement recipients could cause reprisals hindering routine commercial transactions of those with whom minor party organizations deal).

. The government claims there is no meaningful distinction between denying a nonresident alien entry into the United States and denying one entry into the AID assistance program. Reply Brief for Appellees-Cross-Appellants at 3-4. The Court stated, however, that “the power to exclude aliens is 'inherent in sovereignty, necessary for maintaining normal international relations and defending the country against foreign encroachments and dangers.' ” Mandel, 408 U.S. at 765, 92 S.Ct. at 2583 (quoting Brief for Appellants at 20). The same cannot be said of AID foreign assistance. "Deportation and immigration cases stand on a special footing’’ and, like cases involving the rights of aliens in wartime, "involve considerations not present here.” Cardenas v. Smith, 733 F.2d 909, 916 (D.C.Cir.1984).

. I do not fathom why my colleagues spend pages establishing this well-established proposition. See Court’s Opinion at 286-90. Given prevailing precedent, plaintiffs cannot and do not complain of a refusal to fund abortion-related services. While my brethren indeed "belabor" this non-issue, see Court's Opinion at 290, they remarkably fail to notice the great care the Supreme Court twice took to distinguish a case like this one. In McRae the Court recognized that
[a] substantial constitutional question would arise if Congress had attempted to withhold all Medicaid benefits from an otherwise eligible candidate simply because that candidate had exercised [with resources other than Medicaid] her constitutionally protected freedom to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. This would be analogous to Sherbert v. Ver-ner....
448 U.S. at 317 n. 19, 100 S.Ct. at 2688 n. 19. Similarly, in Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464, 474-75, n. 8, 97 S.Ct. 2376, 2383 n. 8, 53 L.Ed.2d 484 (1977), the Court said:
If Connecticut denied general welfare benefits to all women who had obtained abortions and who were otherwise entitled to benefits, we would have a close analogy to the facts in *305Shapiro [v. Thompson ], and strict scrutiny might be appropriate....
Just as a privately-funded abortion should not render one ineligible for all Medicaid benefits, so the privately-funded abortion counseling of the plaintiffs here should not render them ineligible for non-abortion related family planning grants.

. It is simply not true that our government makes a "single-voiced statement” on this foreign affairs question. But see Court’s Opinion at 289, 291 (supposing a "necessity” for the nation to speak on this topic with a single voice). We speak one way to domestic NGOs, the same way to foreign governments, but break away from that single-voiced statement when addressing foreign NGOs.

. I part ways with the district court on the scope of relief in order. That court concluded, incorrectly in my judgment, see infra note 10, that the foreign plaintiffs PSE and PSS “lack standing." Tied to its ruling on "standing,” the district court’s injunction, as amended, reaches foreign NGOs as sub-grantees, but not as direct grantees. The adverse impact of AID’s policy on domestic NGOs, however, is not limited to sub-grant situations. AID picks off or buys up DKTs potential associates abroad when it signs them up — subject to their exhaustive anti-abortion pledge — as grantees, just as it does when it allows them — subject to the same pledge — to be sub-grantees. I would therefore extend the injunction to cover AID contracts with foreign NGOs as direct grantees.

. I am unable sensibly to distinguish the court’s "standing” and "merits” dispositions. The two become one under the "merits first” approach adopted, i.e., first the court decides the foreign NGOs "had no First Amendment rights," therefore the court concludes those NGOs had "no standing to assert a violation of such rights.” Court’s Opinion at 279 (reporting district court’s conclusion "that the foreign plaintiffs had no First Amendment rights and therefore no standing to assert a violation of such rights’’); id. at 284 (this court opens discussion of standing with recitation of "principle that nonresident aliens are without First Amendment rights”), id. at 286 (court restates that under "zone of interest test,” disposition of standing "may be informed by an examination of the merits of the claim”). But cf. Women's Equity Action League v. Cavazos, 879 F.2d 880 (D.C.Cir.1989) (distinguishing the issue of "standing” from the question whether plaintiffs have a viable claim for relief).
Nor do I see how this case can be fitted into the Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 14, 92 S.Ct. 2318, 2326, 33 L.Ed.2d 154 (1972), mold. See Court’s Opinion at 297, 299. In that case, plaintiffs who objected to the Army’s domestic surveillance program identified no imminent harm to themselves. Indeed, their counsel stated at oral argument that plaintiffs would suffer no "chill," but sought to represent the rights others more easily intimidated or "chilled.” Plaintiffs here, by contrast, do assert imminent injury to themselves. They do not attempt to redress the rights of others but claim that others will be coerced by financial considerations to avoid association with them. Bread-and-butter economics, in short, not subjective or psychological chill, serves as the foundation for their claim. See supra note 1.