Not Everything Professionals Say Is “Professional Speech”
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.
Among its many problems, the lower court’s definition of “professional speech” is dangerously overbroad: it doesn’t limit restrictions to a professional’s specialized knowledge or require that the speech be appropriate to each client’s individual circumstances. By determining that the compulsory message required by the FACT Act is merely a regulation of professional speech, the Ninth Circuit both blessed the commandeering of professional speech to deliver any favored government message under the guise of protecting public health and gave itself permission to apply intermediate, rather than strict, scrutiny—contrary to Supreme Court precedent—to determine that the Act's disclosure requirements are constitutional.
Compelled speech is potentially dangerous in any context. It violates the freedom of conscience that the First Amendment is meant to protect and allows the government to promote any message it deems desirable, which is why it typically receives the most exacting scrutiny. Likewise, by discriminating based on content—because the state mandates an exact message—and on the speaker’s viewpoint—by regulating only pro-life centers who do not already participate in the programs the state wishes to advertise—the FACT Act must be examined under strict scrutiny. That is, the law must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling interest that can’t be achieved in any other way.
This is a test the law can’t survive because (1) exemptions to the disclosure requirements illustrate that they are underinclusive, and (2) any number of other methods for distributing the same information exist that wouldn’t impose significant burdens on speech.
In NIFLA v. Becerra, the Supreme Court should reverse the Ninth Circuit.
