BBS Files Amicus Brief in COLFS v. Bonta

BBS attorneys Erin Bernstein and Prianka Mungale recently filed an amicus brief in Culture of Life Family Services (COLFS) v. Bonta (9th Cir. 25-3828) supporting AG Rob Bonta, on behalf of several local governments and city attorneys in California.  The COLFS litigation arises from a case brought by a religiously affiliated reproductive health center seeking to preemptively prevent the Attorney General from enforcing generally applicable consumer protection laws against it.  

Although the Attorney General has not taken any enforcement action against COLFS, the organization claims Bonta is selectively targeting its promotion of “abortion pill reversal,” a medically unproven practice that claims to reverse the effects of medication abortion. COLFS argues that if a public prosecutor enforces a consumer protection law against a religious entity the First Amendment’s religious protections require that law be enforced against all similar secular entities before it may enforce the law against religiously-affiliated ones.   

The BBS amicus brief explains to the Ninth Circuit that California’s generally applicable consumer laws simply ban misleading advertising and unfair business practices, no matter who is engaging in them.  Were public prosecutors required to enforce neutral laws against all secular violators before any religious ones, health and safety rules—speed limits, food inspections, housing standards—would be impossible to enforce.  Likewise, the BBS brief explains that to determine which potential enforcement targets are religiously-affiliated, prosecutors would have to conduct invasive pre-enforcement discovery into their targets and would have to disclose confidential information about other potential targets before being able to enforce the law.  

BBS is proud to support Attorney General Bonta’s efforts to enforce consumer protection laws in areas where vulnerable populations—including those seeking reproductive health care—are susceptible to unsavory practices.  We're grateful to our co-authors at Public Rights Project, and look forward to listening in to the oral argument at the Ninth Circuit.