WASHINGTON _ A California disclosure law that requires faith-based pregnancy centers to inform clients about abortion as an option faced sharp, skeptical questions in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and the court's conservatives said the law appeared to violate the First Amendment.
It is "mandating speech," Kennedy said, and forcing the anti-abortion centers to "alter the content of their message."
A state attorney said the law sought to ensure that pregnant women would be informed of all their options, including state benefits that could help them with childbirth and prenatal care.
But the law was challenged on free speech grounds by more than 110 of the state's crisis pregnancy centers that strongly objected to the required reference to abortion.
And during Tuesday's argument, most of the justices said the law went too far and put too many burdens on these nonprofit clinics.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked about how clinics in Los Angeles County could be expected to provide the required state disclosures in all the languages that were spoken.
Joshua Klein, a deputy solicitor general, said the clinics are required to provide the notices in 13 languages.
But the consistent skepticism from the justices suggested the majority will vote to strike down most or all of the law's mandatory disclosure provisions.
Tuesday's case marked the third time in recent months that the justices weighed a conservative group's claim that a liberal state law amounts to unconstitutional "compelled speech."
California has more than 110 pregnancy centers that are strongly opposed to abortion. Advocates for the centers say the state's disclosure laws could turn them into "abortion referral services."
In their appeal to the Supreme Court, they described the disclosure law as "ideological speech" involving a "matter of fundamental public debate." They argued that the First Amendment forbids the government from telling private entities what they must say or disclose.
In response, lawyers for California said mandatory disclosures and warnings are routine for hospitals, medical professionals and prescription drugs. They argued that the government has broad authority to protect patients and to require they are fully informed of their options for care.
The required notice says: "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." The court will also consider a second provision that requires clinics that are unlicensed to inform patients that they have "no licensed medical professional" on staff. These notices must be posted in the clinic or printed and given to the clients.
In the Supreme Court, the outcome may turn on whether the justices view these posted notices as informative disclosures or ideological messages.
The 9th Circuit Court upheld the California disclosure on the grounds that it was "professional speech," but courts elsewhere have struck down similar provisions that seemed to encourage pregnant women to consider abortion.
Lawyers for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom represent the pregnancy centers, and they urged the justices to strike down the disclosure provisions. The same lawyers appeared before the court in December, urging the justices to rule for a Colorado baker who is asserting a free-speech right against making a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
Last month, the justices heard a free speech challenge to mandatory union fees for public employees, brought by lawyers for the National Right to Work Foundation.
In 2015, the California lawmakers adopted the disclosure law and said they did so based on evidence that some clinics were seeking to deceive pregnant women about their options.
But in the court, the state's lawyers stressed the law fits with the tradition of ensuring that patients are fully informed. They noted that the Supreme Court in 1992 had upheld an anti-abortion law in Pennsylvania that required doctors to give abortion patients a list of agencies that offered "alternatives to abortion" and subsidized prenatal care.
This was not seen as violating the free-speech rights of doctors or their patients, they said. And if so, they argued, California's law should be upheld as constitutional.
The case is National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Becerra.
