California is demanding over $20 million from two pro-life organizations over what they told women about a second chance.

Four weeks into a bench trial in Alameda County Superior Court, that demand is still on the table. It is a long trial about a short window of time—the hours after a woman takes the first of two chemical abortion drugs and decides she wants to try to stop what she has started.

The case is People of the State of California v. Heartbeat International & RealOptions, before Judge Patrick McKinney. Today, with the trial still underway, Thomas More Society launched Defending Second Chances—a new online hub for everything related to its defense of Abortion Pill Reversal. You can find it at thomasmoresociety.org/apr.

What You Will Find on the Page

The hub brings together everything supporters, pregnancy centers, movement partners, and the press need to follow this fight in one place:

• Case overviews for each enforcement action—California, New York, and the federal free speech suits TMS attorneys filed on behalf of pregnancy help organizations in both states.
• A claim-by-claim breakdown of what California is actually contesting, with our responses tied back to evidence in the record and to legal precedent.
• Trial updates posted as the proceedings move, with links to reporting and commentary from people following this case nationwide.
• Declarations from APR moms—statements filed with the court under penalty of perjury by women who used Abortion Pill Reversal and describe their experience in their own words. Elizabeth Barrett, Erika Carrillo, and Uyen Pham, all trial witnesses, are among them.
• Key filings, including the defense trial brief, the state's trial brief, and their supporting papers.
• A timeline tracking both cases as they develop in parallel.
• Legal resources for pregnancy centers watching this case and asking whether the same thing could happen to them—so they can prepare now rather than later.

The Case

At its core, this is a free speech case. California Attorney General Rob Bonta claims that what Heartbeat International and RealOptions have told women about Abortion Pill Reversal amounts to false advertising—and he wants the court to make them pay more than $20 million for it. APR involves giving a woman supplemental progesterone after she takes the first of the two drugs in a chemical abortion. Doctors have been prescribing progesterone to support at-risk pregnancies for decades.

Thomas More Society, representing both pregnancy help ministries, rejects California's framing and is making two arguments at once: the science behind APR holds up, and these ministries have a First Amendment right to talk about it.

A companion fight is underway in New York, where Attorney General Letitia James has sued Heartbeat International along with a group of pregnancy centers. Thomas More Society represents them as well. First Amendment challenges tied to both states' enforcement actions are now before the Ninth and Second Circuit Courts of Appeals.

Why Now

Chemical abortion now accounts for more than two-thirds of all abortions in the United States. Some of the women who start one decide they do not want to finish it. For those women, Abortion Pill Reversal stands between a change of heart and a lifetime of regret—and California wants to shut it down.

Visit Defending Second Chances at thomasmoresociety.org/apr.