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Antiabortion ‘clinics’ and the Supreme Court case: What you need to know about NIFLA v. Becerra

“The right to free speech doesn’t include the right to deceive,” Heather Shumaker, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “We believe that anyone is free to speak antiabortion values, but that’s in fact what this case is talking about — these fake women’s health clinics are not making clear that they are antiabortion when they are targeting women and bringing them into their facilities.” Shumaker explains that at its heart, NIFLA v. Becerra is about whether the First Amendment’s free speech clause allows these centers to actively deceive women. “When you are pregnant, in particular, patients need access to timely and accurate health care information,” she says. “These centers deter women from having abortions and go about doing that by falsely advertising and misleading women to think that they provide different services than what they really do provide.”