Closing arguments set for Sept. 17 in California AG’s abortion pill reversal suit

Closing arguments are set for Sept. 17 in a nearly three-year-old California lawsuit against two pro-life pregnancy organizations, capping a six-week bench trial in which testimony repeatedly undercut the state’s own case against abortion pill reversal.

The case before Judge Patrick McKinney in Alameda County Superior Court pits California Attorney General Rob Bonta against Heartbeat International and RealOptions, which the state accuses of spreading false or misleading claims about Abortion Pill Reversal. The protocol uses progesterone in an attempt to help women continue a pregnancy after taking mifepristone, the first drug in a two-drug abortion regimen. Zeale News has reported that Bonta is seeking close to $20 million in penalties against the two nonprofits.

In its closing trial brief, the Thomas More Society, which represents the defendants, argued Bonta failed to prove the organizations' communications qualify as commercial speech, failed to identify any statement about APR that was false or misleading, and did not produce a single woman who says she was harmed by the treatment, which remains legal in California and is approved for continuing education credit by the state’s Board of Registered Nursing. Peter Breen, the group's executive vice president and head of litigation, said the state's own expert “couldn't bring himself to say under oath that Abortion Pill Reversal is unsafe or ineffective.”

That expert, Dr. Mitchell Creinin, was the state's lead witness. Zeale News previously reported that cross-examination exposed significant problems with his testimony. Creinin acknowledged he had privately estimated that only about 8% of pregnancies continue after mifepristone alone, a figure he chose not to include in his own 2020 published study, and he testified he'd never reviewed a dataset of roughly 8,800 APR cases that Heartbeat International had provided to the attorney general's office during litigation. Multiple mothers also testified during the trial, including Erika Carrillo of San Mateo, who said she was referred to RealOptions after searching for help online and later gave birth to a healthy son.

Heartbeat International's leadership framed the stakes in personal terms. Jor-El Godsey, the organization's president, said a woman who changes her mind “deserves immediate answers, compassionate care, and the freedom to fight for her child,” adding that its network would not abandon such women. The organization's general counsel, Danielle White, said a ruling against the pregnancy centers would mark the first time California used the state’s consumer protection laws to punish a non-profit offering free assistance.

Under California law, McKinney will have 90 days after the Sept. 17 arguments to issue a ruling in the case, which was first filed in 2023. 

Nationally, the fight over abortion pill reversal has settled into two camps. California and New York have sued pro-life pregnancy centers over their APR advertising, arguing it's false and misleading. Colorado remains the only state with an outright legislative ban on the practice itself, although Bella Health + Wellness and a nurse midwife practitioner prevailed in a lawsuit against the ban and received permanent protection from the law. Several Republican-led states have moved the opposite direction, requiring clinics to tell patients APR exists as an option.