Like all states, California has licensed medical centers of every kind. One particular type, often known as a “crisis pregnancy center,” provides pregnancy-related services with the goal of helping women to make choices other than abortion. Based on opposition to these centers, the California legislature enacted a law, the FACT Act, requiring licensed clinics “whose primary purpose is providing family planning or pregnancy-related services” to deliver to each of their clients the following message: “California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including all FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women.” But the law also creates an exception for clinics that actually enroll clients in these programs—so, in effect, the law applies only to clinics that oppose the very program they must advertise.
Several of these crisis pregnancy centers sued to block the law, arguing that it violated their First Amendment rights by forcing them to express a message to which they are opposed. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the law, holding that it regulates only “professional speech” and therefore should be reviewed under a more deferential standard, rather than the normal strict judicial scrutiny that applies to laws compelling speech. The Supreme Court agreed to review that ruling in a case called National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (“NIFLA”) v. Becerra. Cato has filed a brief urging the justices to correct the lower court’s flawed reasoning.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/not-everything-professionals-say-professional-speech
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