Signed by Republican governor, law bans abortion-reversal claims, singles out pro-life organizations for onerous requirements not faced by abortion clinics.
this spring Vermont joined California and Connecticut in regulating the speech of pro-life pregnancy centers, claiming they routinely dupe abortion-seeking women about the services they provide and share misinformation.
This week the Green Mountain State joined them in getting sued for alleged First and Fourteenth Amendment infringements.
The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, a pregnancy center network, and two of its seven Vermont members are seeking an injunction against several officials, including state Attorney General Charity Clark, with authority to enforce various provisions of SB 37 – being characterized in such legal language as "vague and viewpoint-discriminatory" speech code "not narrowly tailored to any asserted state interest."
Clark's office did not respond to a request for its response to the lawsuit.
The Supreme Court ruled five years ago that California's law was likely unconstitutional in a case also brought by the institute, and a federal court soon followed with a permanent injunction.
That ruling was cited in a related victory for pro-life activists three years later against California's floating buffer zone around "vaccination sites," which prevented them from talking to people entering or exiting Planned Parenthood clinics that provide HPV vaccines.
Yet states have continued passing similar speech-based regulations that single out pro-life pregnancy centers, including Connecticut's 2021 "deceptive advertising" law, which was challenged by another network, Care Net.
The Alliance Defending Freedom filed all three challenges, dismissing its Connecticut suit in January after Attorney General William Tong testified "he is not aware of any women being deceived by pro-life pregnancy centers" and so can't currently enforce the law, ADF told the National Catholic Register at the time.
Like the Connecticut challenge, the Vermont suit doesn't invoke the SCOTUS ruling in the initial complaint because it's not necessary at that early stage, ADF told Just the News.
Signed by Republican Gov. Phil Scott in May, Vermont's law creates a category known as "limited-services pregnancy centers" that do not directly provide or refer clients for abortions or emergency contraception, singling them out for special scrutiny.
It defines their advertising as "an act of commerce," despite them not charging for their goods or services, compared to abortion clinics that have "a financial interest in performing as many abortions as possible," the suit states.
NIFLA and its members are prohibited from advertising in ways that are "untrue or clearly designed to mislead the public about the nature of services provided."
The suit points to legislative findings that claim some centers do not "openly acknowledge" the services they won't provide and promote "patently false or biased medical claims."
One of the claims frequently promoted by pro-life centers and activists – rejected by abortion clinics and activists and reportedly censored by Google – is explicitly prohibited in the law: "services or medications that are purported to reverse the effects of a medication abortion." Flooding the uterus with progesterone, which maintains uterine lining and modulates the mother's immune system response to the fetus, can reverse the effects of mifepristone – taken before misoprostol in two-pill medication abortion – because they both target progesterone receptors. But the latter's binding affinity is only slightly stronger, according to an explainer and review of research by former Ohio State University chemist Petra Wallenmeyer in science-focused Secular Pro-Life.
One frequently invoked 2018 study of 754 women who took progesterone after mifepristone found that 64% achieved reversal via injection and 68% orally, with "no apparent increased risk of birth defects."
Both NIFLA Vermont centers said they are withholding their promotion of reversal options – through an unreleased website video and ceased distribution of contact cards – for fear of incurring penalties enforced by Clark's office: up to $10,000 for each violation, restitution to consumers and reimbursement to Vermont for investigating and prosecuting.
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