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Page Number: 22

18 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FAMILY AND 
LIFE ADVOCATES v. BECERRA
 
Opinion of the Court 

medical care from licensed professionals.”  2015 Cal. Legis. 
Serv., §1(e).  At oral argument, however, California denied
that  the  justification  for  the  FACT  Act  was  that  women
“go  into  [crisis  pregnancy  centers]  and  they  don’t  realize
what  they  are.”    See  Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.  at  44–45.    Indeed, 
California  points  to  nothing  suggesting  that  pregnant 
women do not already know that the covered facilities are
staffed  by  unlicensed  medical  professionals.    The  services 
that trigger the unlicensed notice—such as having “volun-
teers who collect health information from clients,” “adver-
tis[ing]  . . .  pregnancy  options  counseling,”  and  offering 
over-the-counter  “pregnancy  testing,”  §123471(b)—do  not 
require a medical license.  And California already makes it 
a  crime  for  individuals  without  a  medical  license  to  prac-
tice medicine.  See Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code Ann. §2052.  At 
this  preliminary  stage  of  the  litigation,  we  agree  that 
petitioners  are  likely  to  prevail  on  the  question  whether 
California  has  proved  a  justification  for  the  unlicensed 
notice.4 

Even  if  California  had  presented  a  nonhypothetical
justification for the unlicensed notice, the FACT Act unduly
burdens protected speech.  The unlicensed notice imposes 
a  government-scripted,  speaker-based  disclosure  require-
ment  that  is  wholly  disconnected  from  California’s  infor-
mational  interest.    It  requires  covered  facilities  to  post
California’s  precise  notice,  no  matter  what  the  facilities 
say  on  site  or  in  their  advertisements.    And  it  covers  a 
curiously  narrow  subset  of  speakers.    While  the  licensed 
notice  applies  to  facilities  that  provide  “family  planning” 
services  and  “contraception  or  contraceptive  methods,” 
§123471(a),  the  California  Legislature  dropped  these 
triggering  conditions  for  the  unlicensed  notice.    The  unli-

—————— 

4 Nothing  in  our  opinion  should  be  read  to  foreclose  the  possibility
that  California  will  gather  enough  evidence  in  later  stages  of  this 
litigation.