There is no logic, no science, and, therefore, no law undergirding Bonta’s lawsuit. But he did have a reason for filing it: politics. The California attorney general’s office is often seen as a launching point to seek higher office. It’s two previous elected occupants—Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra—leveraged their roles into high-profile posts in the Biden administration. But the way to be a popular—and, therefore, upwardly mobile—attorney general of California is to appease rabidly progressive constituencies, such as the abortion lobby, who want to see the legal system weaponized against pro-lifers.

In fact, this is not the first time that a California attorney general has attempted to police the speech of faith-based pregnancy resource centers. Harris began and Becerra continued an effort to force pregnancy resource centers to refer for abortion. That case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled the effort violated the First Amendment in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra (2018).

Having lost an attempt to compel the speech of pregnancy resource centers in favor of abortion, the California attorney general’s office is now attempting to suppress the speech of pregnancy resource centers that provide abortion reversal.