Sanford Jay Rosen, Gay Crosthwait Grunfeld, and Devin W. Mauney of RBGG have filed an amicus brief in NIFLA v. Becerra, an important reproductive rights and First Amendment case pending before the United States Supreme Court. Several California and National organizations on the front lines of protecting women’s health and reproductive rights are the Amici represented by the firm—Equal Rights Advocates, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, California Women Lawyers, Hadassah, and the Family Violence Appellate Project.
A growing number of “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” (“CPCs”) use deceptive tactics to draw in women and dispense medically inaccurate and incomplete information that jeopardizes the health and lives of many women, especially low-income and other at-risk women. In response, California’s Reproductive FACT Act requires CPCs to disclose whether they are licensed to provide medical care and to nonintrusively notify women who enter their facilities of comprehensive family planning services available through state-funded clinics.
The brief supports California’s law by marshaling abundant facts about the epidemic of deceptive and plainly false information pushed by CPCs. Noting Justice Holmes famous pronouncement that “[t]he most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre[,]” Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919), the brief argues that California’s interest in correcting CPCs’ widespread deception and misinformation is not merely important but compelling. The brief is available here: NIFLA v Becerra Brief for Amici Curiae.
Additional Resources for NIFLA v. Bercerra
U.S. Supreme Court docket page