Pasadena, California - Attorneys from Thomas More Society will appear before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today, Thursday, October 9, 2025, at 9:30 a.m. PST, in Courtroom 3 at the Richard H. Chambers Courthouse in Pasadena, California.

Peter Breen, Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation at Thomas More Society, will be arguing on behalf of Culture of Life Family Services, or COLFS, in a landmark case challenging California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s attempt to censor pro-life pregnancy centers from sharing information about the life-saving Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) protocol. The appeal seeks a reversal of the district court’s order denying protection to COLFS and its communications about APR from potential legal action by Bonta’s office.

“Women deserve options, not censorship,” Breen said. “Countless women every year regret starting and completing a chemical abortion. The Abortion Pill Reversal protocol offers them hope, but instead of supporting their second chance at choosing life, the State of California wants to keep these mothers in the dark and force them into completing an abortion they no longer want.”

“California claims to champion ‘choice,’ but the Attorney General is specifically targeting pro-life pregnancy centers because his office’s ideological bent only supports one choice, and that’s abortion,” Breen continued. “This case is about free speech, a woman’s right to access life-saving information when it is needed most, and the government’s blatant attempts to censor viewpoints it disfavors.”

The science-backed APR protocol uses progesterone, a time-tested and FDA-approved hormone that’s been safely used to sustain at-risk pregnancies since the 1950s. The APR treatment has successfully saved thousands of babies across the country. In September 2023, Bonta’s office filed a lawsuit alleging speech about Abortion Pill Reversal is “false” and “misleading—suing Heartbeat International, a global network of pregnancy centers and operator of the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network, and RealOptions Obria Medical Clinics, a chain of pregnancy centers in California. Thomas More Society is defending Heartbeat and RealOptions against Bonta in that case.

With his recent actions, the California Attorney General ignores both science and the real experiences of women who have successfully saved their babies despite beginning a chemical abortion and unconstitutionally chilled the speech of other pro-life ministries—such as COLFS—who share the same information. Dr. George Delgado, the medical director for COLFS, pioneered the Abortion Pill Reversal protocol and founded the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network.

In its opening brief, Thomas More Society argues that the state’s actions violate First Amendment protections on non-commercial speech by chilling protected speech about APR and that the Attorney General has provided no credible evidence to justify restricting truthful speech about APR.

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Pictured: Halie and her son JC, whose life was saved through Heartbeat International's Abortion Pill Rescue Network.