Mayday v. Labrador Defending the Right to Talk About Abortion in Idaho

Contact

Legal Voice Communications
media@legalvoice.org

Background

It all started with a billboard on the side of a truck.

Mayday, a nonprofit health education organization, paid for a truck outfitted with a billboard to drive around Nampa, Idaho. The ad would say the following:

Pregnant?
Don’t want to be?
Learn more at mayday.health

Mayday knew the campaign would likely draw negative attention from Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador. That’s because Idaho has multiple laws that criminalize abortion health care, support for that care, and even speech about that care. Additionally, Mayday has experience fending off legal threats in other states with similar restrictions, including Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Dakota.

So, Mayday contacted Labrador before the campaign launched to get his assurance that he would allow the billboard to be displayed.

It sent letters. It emailed. It called. It left voicemails. But all of its communications went unanswered. With no clarity about whether the state would retaliate, Mayday was forced to cancel its plans.

Only afterward did Labrador’s office respond, refusing to answer Mayday’s question and saying only that it would not provide “legal advice.”

In other words: stay silent or speak at your own peril.

Neither option being acceptable, we partnered with Davis Wright Tremaine to sue the attorney general on Mayday’s behalf. Our lawsuit asks the court to prevent Labrador from prosecuting Mayday and declare that the organization’s future campaigns are fully protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Our Argument

Mayday is a donor-funded information clearinghouse — an educational resource with links to other websites — that provides people with the information they need to make informed health care choices. It does not sell, handle, provide, offer for sale, or distribute any medications. It does not benefit from the sale of abortion medication and has no customers. Nor does it monetize its users’ data.

As a result, Mayday’s activity is protected by the First Amendment.

• The government typically cannot punish people for sharing truthful information.
• The government cannot threaten people into silence before legal speech even happens.
• States cannot ban speech that helps people learn about legal abortion services in other states.
• The government cannot single out speech about abortion for different treatment simply because it disagrees with the content or viewpoint.