Ben ShapiroOn Tuesday, the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that the state of California could not compel pro-life pregnancy centers to inform prospective patients about the availability of taxpayer-funded abortions. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld the law by stating that it only regulated “professional speech” — but as the Supreme Court noted, there is no Constitutional category of “professional speech” as distinguished from other speech. “Speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered by ‘professionals,’” the Court held. Only speech restrictions that are non-content based — that is, that concern “factual, noncontroversial information” — are allowable under the First Amendment.
In his majority opinion, Justice Thomas took the Ninth Circuit to task for their obvious political bias. As Thomas pointed out, “The notice in no way relates to the services that licensed clinics provide. Instead, it requires these clinics to disclose information about state-sponsored services— including abortion, anything but an ‘uncontroversial’ topic.” Thomas concluded: “The licensed notice at issue here is not an informed consent requirement or any other regulation of professional conduct. The notice does not facilitate informed consent to a medical procedure. In fact, it is not tied to a procedure at all.”
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