Thank you for highlighting this case and the underlying issues. Until today, I don't recall ever even wanting to read NIFLA v. Becerra. Even if I had, I almost certainly would have skipped right over everything about the kind of issues you covered. But your coverage was so insightful and fascinating (and Emily's testimony was so compelling) that yesterday I listened to this entire podcast. Today, as I listened again to Emily start to speak about how her fears and feelings were manipulated and how that made her feel, the hair stood up on the back of my neck and chills ran down my spine.
What Emily was describing was exceedingly creepy. It might be the most invidious and insidious form of phishing I've ever heard of. No matter how anyone views why that organization did what they did to women like Emily, what they did was plain as day and dark as night: use deceit to lure people in precisely when they're most vulnerable for the purpose of eliciting exceedingly personal and medical information from those people for the organization's own purposes.
Now that I know the backstory, I have a bit of a problem with the opening contention in NIFLA v. Becerra that "[the only] question in this case is whether these notice requirements violate the First Amendment" (the rights of the organization luring vulnerable people in to trick them into confessing their deepest secrets and fears).
I think the real issue is that California required the wrong information to be displayed. I happen to agree with the court's decision, because California was demanding the centers to provide specific information about abortion. If California limited the law to require that these centers disclose their religious affiliations and or be specific in stating their views on abortion up front, that might have been constitutional.
Thank you for highlighting this case and the underlying issues. Until today, I don't recall ever even wanting to read NIFLA v. Becerra. Even if I had, I almost certainly would have skipped right over everything about the kind of issues you covered. But your coverage was so insightful and fascinating (and Emily's testimony was so compelling) that yesterday I listened to this entire podcast. Today, as I listened again to Emily start to speak about how her fears and feelings were manipulated and how that made her feel, the hair stood up on the back of my neck and chills ran down my spine.
What Emily was describing was exceedingly creepy. It might be the most invidious and insidious form of phishing I've ever heard of. No matter how anyone views why that organization did what they did to women like Emily, what they did was plain as day and dark as night: use deceit to lure people in precisely when they're most vulnerable for the purpose of eliciting exceedingly personal and medical information from those people for the organization's own purposes.
Now that I know the backstory, I have a bit of a problem with the opening contention in NIFLA v. Becerra that "[the only] question in this case is whether these notice requirements violate the First Amendment" (the rights of the organization luring vulnerable people in to trick them into confessing their deepest secrets and fears).
I think the real issue is that California required the wrong information to be displayed. I happen to agree with the court's decision, because California was demanding the centers to provide specific information about abortion. If California limited the law to require that these centers disclose their religious affiliations and or be specific in stating their views on abortion up front, that might have been constitutional.