Abortion foes move to block online ads for reproductive services

[Novara]

2. That's not legal. Now.

There's also a Supreme Court precedent protecting advertisers. Prior to the Roe v. Wade decision, somes states explicitly banned advertising for abortion services. In 1971, Jeffrey Cole Bigelow, editor for an underground Charlottesville-based magazine called Virginia Weekly, ran an ad for an abortion clinic in New York, despite a Virginia law that made it a misdemeanor to "encourage or prompt the procuring of abortion." Bigelow was arrested and convicted, but his case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor. ... In the majority opinion, then-Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that the advertisement wasn't promoting a simple commercial transaction. "It contained factual material of clear public import" and was entitled to First Amendment protection, he wrote. However, the ruling came at a time when the court was sympathetic to abortion rights, having granted them constitutional protection two years earlier in the Roe decision. The current court may feel differently.

Yeah, we can all see where this is going.