Pro-life organization Heartbeat International (HBI) is on trial in a California court for daring to inform women that the effects of the abortion pill can sometimes be reversed. “Heartbeat International is fighting for one thing: The ability to tell women the truth when they call seeking help after taking the first abortion pill and regretting their decision,” HBI general counsel Danielle White said in a statement to The Washington Stand. “Women deserve to know all of their options. They don’t lose that right after beginning a chemical abortion.”

In 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) sued HBI and pro-life pregnancy center RealOptions in Alameda County Court for “advertising Abortion Pill Reversal as safe and effective.” Bonta asked the court to impose a penalty of more than $20 million against HBI and $600,000 against RealOptions, which would amount to a financial death sentence for the nonprofits.

Heartbeat International “learned [of the lawsuit] through interview requests.” Bonta alleged that they had violated California’s False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition Law through “fraudulent and misleading claims to advertise an unproven and largely experimental procedure called ‘abortion pill reversal (APR).’” He demanded the court fine the organizations $2,500 per infraction.

The case went to a bench trial on June 24, 2026, and the trial may continue for another three to four weeks. “This is the first case of its kind to reach trial, and the implications extend far beyond Heartbeat International,” remarked HBI general counsel Danielle White. “A ruling in California’s favor would hand attorneys general across the country a roadmap to penalize any non-profit organization that provides women with information the state disagrees with.”

“If the Attorney General prevails and our clients cannot deliver free, truthful, and lifesaving information to women who request it, then countless babies that could survive may not — and countless women may never meet the children that they wanted to carry to term,” declared Thomas More Society’s Paul Jonna in his opening statement for HBI. However, when all testimony has been heard, Attorney General Bonta may find that it was the abortion pill, not (APR), that failed to hold up under judicial scrutiny.

Pro-life doctors have offered APR to women since 2012. The treatment uses progesterone to counter the effects of mifepristone, if taken within 72 hours. Progesterone is a naturally occurring hormone that has been approved by the FDA for safe use during pregnancy since the 1950s. Due to a variety of factors, APR does not always save the baby, but peer-reviewed studies show a 64-68% success rate, and APR has saved the lives of at least 8,000 unborn babies. It offers a second chance to choose life for women who initiate a chemical abortion and immediately regret doing so.

Naturally, pro-abortion activists want to shut down such an effective alternative to abortion. Bonta brought a false advertising lawsuit against HBI despite receiving no actual complaints from California women. Even after three years of litigation, Bonta has yet to produce a single client who claims she was misled by HBI or RealOptions. “Instead,” said HBI, “the trial will include testimony from mothers who sought help through Heartbeat’s network and are today raising healthy children after choosing to reverse their abortion — firsthand accounts of the access to information this case puts at risk.”

Notably, “The California Attorney General does not seek to ban APR itself,” said The Thomas More Society. “The treatment remains legal, and California doctors are free to provide it.” Bonta must claim that APR is unsafe and ineffective in order to punish nonprofits who advertise it. Yet Bonta has not moved to prohibit APR because there is no evidence against it. One might almost conclude that his purpose is to suppress information about this option rather than stamp it out altogether.

As the trial’s first witness, Bonta called Dr. Mitchell Creinin, a researcher at UC Davis, as well as a paid consultant of Danco Laboratories, which produces abortion pills. In 2020, Creinin conducted a study purporting to demolish the argument that APR was safe.

However, the Creinin study has major flaws. First, Creinin admitted privately that the study was “pseudo-blinded” instead of “double blind” because the placebo pills he used did not match the progesterone pills, and the research coordinator who handled the pills knew the difference. Second, Creinin ended the study early after three of its 12 participants were rushed to the hospital. Two of the women had taken mifepristone and then the placebo, and they ultimately required surgery. The other woman, who had taken APR, lost her baby but did not require surgery and did not experience “severe hemorrhage” as the study claimed.

“After two days of cross-examination,” HBI attorney Jonna got Creinin to admit that he could not swear under oath that APR was unsafe or ineffective — the very core of the state’s argument.

During litigation, HBI made its full database of 8,800 APR patient entries available to the attorney general. According to the data, only three women required blood transfusions (two of whom never took their progesterone), 11 were admitted to the hospital, and only 88 visited the ER. Creinin, the state’s expert witness, never reviewed the data but admitted that, “if the data was true,” then it would help to show that APR is safe.

With cross-examination of the very witness lasting for two whole days, it’s a bit easier to imagine how the trial will drag on for five or six weeks. The trial entered day nine on Wednesday.

Thomas More Society and HBI are determined to put up the best defense possible because of the principles at stake. “California claims to fight for women’s choices. But seeking the ‘death penalty’ in fines to silence the charity she calls when she changes her mind is not freedom — it’s control,” argued HBI President Jor-El Godsey. “No mom should be denied the chance to save her own baby’s life. Heartbeat will always fight for a mother’s right to know and her right to choose life.”

Jonna also stressed the constitutional angle. “The First Amendment forbids government from suppressing speech it doesn’t like, especially on deeply contested scientific debates. Bonta’s legal theory, if it prevails, would expose any nonprofit in America that speaks publicly about its services and relies on donor support to the same government overreach. That is a threat to free speech and civil society far beyond this case.”

This is not the first time that a California attorney general has infringed upon the free speech rights of pro-life pregnancy centers. More than a decade ago, California’s then-Attorney General Kamala Harris tried to force pro-life pregnancy centers to refer for abortion. The move was such good politics on the Left Coast that voters soon promoted Harris to the Senate.

Her replacement, Xavier Becerra, continued the persecution campaign all the way up to the Supreme Court, where California lost in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra (2018). Yet even a judicial defeat proved to be good politics, and Harris and Becerra both got another promotion in the Biden administration, becoming vice president and HHS secretary, respectively.

The California attorney general’s office is a prime position for Democrats looking to advance their careers and gain national prominence — but only if they use the role to illegally target pro-lifers. While Bonta’s legal and scientific reasons for targeting HBI are murky, his political motives for doing so are undeniable.

In targeting HBI for promoting APR, Bonta finds himself in, if not “good” company, at least plentiful company. Ever since the Dobbs decision in 2022, progressive officials across the country have made persecuting pro-life pregnancy centers a top priority — and particularly targeting APR. In New York, Attorney General Letitia James (D) sued 11 pregnancy centers in the HBI network for “misleading advertising” over the abortion pill. James eventually received a rebuke from the Second Circuit in NIFLA v. James.

In Colorado, the state legislature in 2023 passed a law prohibiting physicians from prescribing APR. After a federal judge permanently enjoined the law in 2025, Colorado paid $6.1 million in a legal settlement with pro-life physicians.

Even in more conservative states, pro-abortion politicians have flexed their muscles against APR. Kansas Governor Laura Kelly (D) vetoed a bill that would provide women seeking a chemical abortion with information about APR, prompting the legislature to override her veto.

Thus, while California’s lawsuit against HBI is the first to go to trial, it is only one of many pro-abortion attacks on the commonsense practice of abortion pill reversal. That makes the California trial the “pro-life ‘trial of the century,’” in the words of Thomas More Society Executive Vice President Peter Breen. “Heartbeat provides free, lifesaving information to women who have changed their minds about chemical abortion and want a second chance at life for their babies. If Bonta succeeds, those moms go unaided, and their babies likely die. … Bonta’s prosecution runs roughshod over the Free Speech rights of every American. We won’t let him succeed.”