Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1140_5368.pdf
Page Number: 2.0

2 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FAMILY AND 
LIFE ADVOCATES v. BECERRA
 
Syllabus
 

tive  content”  and  “are  presumptively  unconstitutional  and  may  be
justified  only  if  the  government  proves  that  they  are  narrowly  tai-
lored  to  serve  compelling  state  interests.”  Reed  v.  Town  of  Gilbert, 
576 U. S. ___, ___.  The licensed notice is a content-based regulation.
By compelling petitioners to speak a particular message, it “alters the
content  of  [their]  speech.”  Riley  v.  National  Federation  of  Blind  of 
N. C.,  Inc.,  487  U. S.  781,  795.    For  example,  one  of  the  state-
sponsored services that the licensed notice requires petitioners to ad-
vertise is abortion—the very practice that  petitioners  are devoted  to
opposing.  Pp. 6–7.

(b) Although the licensed notice is content-based, the Ninth Cir-
cuit did not apply strict scrutiny because it concluded that the notice 
regulates “professional speech.”  But this Court has never recognized 
“professional speech” as a  separate category of speech subject to dif-
ferent rules.  Speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered 
by  professionals.  The  Court  has  afforded  less  protection  for  profes-
sional  speech  in  two  circumstances—where  a  law  requires  profes-
sionals  to  disclose  factual,  noncontroversial  information  in  their 
“commercial  speech,”  see,  e.g.,  Zauderer  v.  Office  of  Disciplinary 
Counsel  of  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio,  471  U. S.  626,  651,  and  where 
States  regulate  professional  conduct  that  incidentally  involves
speech, see, e.g., Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U. S. 447, 456. 
Neither line of precedents is implicated here.  Pp. 7–14.

(1) Unlike the rule in Zauderer, the licensed notice is not limited to 
“purely factual and uncontroversial information about the terms un-
der  which  . . .  services  will  be  available,”  471  U. S.,  at  651.    Califor-
nia’s  notice  requires  covered  clinics  to  disclose  information  about 
state-sponsored  services—including  abortion,  hardly  an  “uncontro-
versial” topic.  Accordingly, Zauderer has no application here.  P. 9. 

(2) Nor  is  the  licensed  notice  a  regulation  of  professional  conduct
that  incidentally  burdens  speech.    The  Court’s  precedents  have  long
drawn a line between speech and conduct.  In Planned Parenthood of 
Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, for example, the joint opin-
ion  rejected  a  free-speech  challenge  to  an  informed-consent  law  re-
quiring  physicians  to  “give  a  woman  certain  information  as  part  of 
obtaining  her  consent  to  an  abortion,”  id.,  at  884.    But  the  licensed 
notice is neither an informed-consent requirement nor any other reg-
ulation of professional conduct.  It applies to all interactions between 
a covered facility and its clients, regardless of whether a medical pro-
cedure is ever sought, offered, or performed.  And many other facili-
ties providing the exact same services, such as general practice clin-
ics, are not subject to the requirement.  Pp. 10–11. 

(3) Outside of these two contexts, the Court’s precedents have long 
protected  the  First  Amendment  rights  of  professionals.    The  Court