Trial begins in California’s lawsuit against pregnancy resource centers’ abortion pill reversal resources

(OSV News) — California’s lawsuit against two pro-life nonprofit organizations that specialize in helping to reverse the immediate effects of abortion pills went to trial June 24.

The Thomas More Society announced the start of the bench trial in the Superior Court of Alameda County July 23, saying California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta sought “to punish and permanently silence” its clients, Heartbeat International and RealOptions Obria Medical Clinics.

The state filed the complaint in September 2023. In the lawsuit, the state of California alleges Heartbeat International, an international pregnancy resource center network based in Columbus, Ohio, and RealOptions, a reproductive health clinic with four locations in the San Francisco Bay area that provides abortion pill reversal treatment, gave “false and misleading statements” to their clients about the treatment.

The state called into question abortion pill reversal treatment and Heartbeat International’s assertion that the effects of the two-pill process of chemical abortion can be reversed particularly after the first pill, mifepristone, is taken. The lawsuit said that “not a single credibly designed medical study has verified HBI’s claims.”

Thomas More, a Chicago-based, Catholic-run public interest law firm, said the two organizations had shared “truthful, medically supported information about a treatment that has helped save thousands of babies’ lives after their mothers took the first abortion pill.”

The lawsuit calls for $2,500 penalties under several conditions for each violation of the state’s business and professional codes. Thomas More said the fines would amount to more than $20 million, which “would threaten the financial viability” of its two clients.

In announcing the start of the trial, Thomas More noted, “The California Attorney General does not seek to ban (abortion pill reversal) itself — the treatment remains legal, and California doctors are free to provide it. What he seeks is something far more extraordinary: to make it illegal for two pro-life nonprofits to tell women that this legal and lifesaving option exists.”

Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation at Thomas More Society, called the case “the pro-life ‘trial of the century'” and said Bonta’s “gag order” was unprecedented, while the $20 million in fines was “ruinous.”

“Heartbeat provides free, lifesaving information to women who have changed their minds about chemical abortion and want a second chance at life for their babies,” Breen said in the announcement. “If Bonta succeeds, those moms go unaided and their babies likely die. The First Amendment forbids government from declaring what’s true and false in issues of public debate like abortion — Bonta’s prosecution runs roughshod over the Free Speech rights of every American. We won’t let him succeed.”

Paul Jonna, special counsel at Thomas More and partner at LiMandri and Jonna LLP in Rancho Santa Fe, California, underscored the firm’s position.

“The First Amendment forbids government from suppressing speech it doesn’t like, especially on deeply contested scientific debates,” he said. “Bonta’s legal theory, if it prevails, would expose any nonprofit in America that speaks publicly about its services and relies on donor support to the same government overreach.”

He said the “overreach” would pose a “threat to free speech and civil society far beyond this case.”

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