During oral arguments, justices peppered Joshua Klein, California deputy solicitor general, with questions about the law’s intent and why it appeared to single out certain pregnancy centers. Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr., who is considered to be among the high court’s conservative members, asked why the law did not apply to for-profit centers.
“If you have a law that’s neutral on its face, but then it has a lot of crazy exemptions, and when you apply all the exemptions, what you’re left with is a very strange pattern and, gee, it turns out that just about the only clinics that are covered by this are pro-life clinics,” Justice Alito said during arguments. “Do you think it’s possible to infer intentional discrimination in that situation? Why does [the law] apply only for nonprofits and not for-profits? If the purpose is to get this information out to poor women, don’t you think there are examples of poor women who stumble into a for-profit facility?”
Mr. Klein responded that the law was designed to address scenarios in the state in which more transparency was needed.
“Your Honor, as a category, for-profit clinics do not seem to treat primarily women who need free and sliding-cost scale care in the same way,” Mr. Klein said. “Now I will say it’s always possible to imagine a new boundary for the law. But under intermediate scrutiny, a law does not need to be perfect and a legislature can concentrate its efforts at where the need for the law is most apparent.”