SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) A person who is pregnant or believes they might be pregnant may seek services from a pregnancy services center. Those services might be pregnancy-related such as pregnancy testing, pregnancy diagnosis, obstetric ultrasounds, obstetric sonograms, or prenatal care. The services might also include options for emergency contraception or termination of a pregnancy, including surgical and nonsurgical abortion and the abortion pill.
(b) When a person considers termination of a pregnancy, time is a critical factor. Delays in deciding to terminate a pregnancy might mean that a less invasive option is no longer available or that the option to terminate a pregnancy is no longer available. Emergency contraception can prevent pregnancy from occurring after unprotected sex or after birth control has failed, but must be taken within a short period of time after sex to be effective, generally within 72 hours. For people who intend to continue their pregnancies, obtaining early prenatal care reduces the risk of complications for both the pregnant person and baby. Pregnant people who do not get prenatal care or delay getting prenatal care are at greater risk for having undetected pregnancy complications that increase the risk of maternal or infant mortality, and their babies are more likely to have low birth weight or other complications. Therefore, it is critical that a pregnant person timely selects a provider that meets their needs.
(c) Many pregnant people do not come to a pregnancy services center as a result of a referral from a medical professional. Instead, pregnant people often select a pregnancy service center based on advertising procured by the center over the internet, on billboards, radio, and television, in digital media, and in printed media, including newspapers and magazines. This is commercial speech that pregnancy service centers rely on to compete with other pregnancy service centers to attract pregnant people seeking assistance, including termination of pregnancy, emergency contraception, and prenatal care.
(d) Some pregnancy service centers use false or misleading advertising to attract pregnant people contemplating terminating a pregnancy into believing that the center offers those services, even though it is not the center’s business practice to provide abortion services or to refer a pregnant person to another provider qualified to provide the services. Many pregnancy service centers that engage in such false or misleading advertising do not provide prenatal care.
(e) Pregnant people seeking information regarding options to terminate a pregnancy may experience emotional and physical stress, and are therefore especially susceptible to a pregnancy service center’s false or misleading advertising.
(f) Many pregnancy service centers offer “nondiagnostic” or “nonmedical” ultrasounds, which may not detect fetal abnormalities, fetal distress, or other complications, or may be performed by persons unqualified to identify medical conditions that could affect a pregnancy. Nondiagnostic or nonmedical ultrasounds may give pregnant people a false sense of security and cause them to delay seeking adequate prenatal care. Both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine discourage the use of nonmedical ultrasounds to view or obtain images of a fetus.
(g) Because of the time-sensitive nature of the decision to terminate a pregnancy or obtain emergency contraception, and the importance of timely access to prenatal care, false and misleading advertising by a pregnancy service center is of concern to the Legislature. When a pregnant person is misled into believing that a pregnancy service center offers services that it does not in fact offer, they lose time crucial to accessing emergency contraception, obtaining an abortion, or beginning prenatal care. Under these circumstances, a pregnant person might also lose the option to choose a particular procedure or to terminate the pregnancy at all.
(h) If a pregnant person is misled and delayed by false or misleading advertising from obtaining an abortion, emergency contraception, or prenatal care, the cost of providing more invasive and expensive options may fall upon the state and local governments.
(i) California’s False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition Law often prove inadequate to protect the interests of potential consumers of pregnancy center services, as those laws require a private party to demonstrate financial harm in order to establish standing and provide private parties with limited remedies.
(j) This act does not limit the right of anyone, including a pregnancy service center, to advocate or counsel against pregnancy termination, or to advertise in a way that is not false and misleading regarding any service actually offered. This act only regulates false or misleading commercial speech, including false or misleading speech in advertisements.