South Dakota is having trouble enforcing a law banning advertising about abortion pills. On July 17, 2026, less than three weeks after the ban took effect on July 1, U.S. District Judge Camela C. Theeler issued an injunction blocking its enforcement.

She ruled that the ban likely is unconstitutional in response to a lawsuit filed by Mayday Health, a nonprofit based in New York. Mayday’s website provides information about abortion pills, with links that can help women find a telemedicine provider.

Mayday wanted to promote its website in South Dakota, including by posting signs at gas stations that asked: “Pregnant? Don’t Want to Be?” and encouraged people to “learn more” by going to its website. Fearing prosecution for having posted these signs, Mayday sued. It contended that South Dakota’s advertising ban censored truthful information and violated its First Amendment free speech rights.

As an expert on reproductive rights and First Amendment law who has argued before the Supreme Court, I think this case illustrates how the battle over abortion, which used to revolve around whether it should be legal everywhere in the U.S., now focuses on pills and telemedicine. It also shows how the First Amendment can limit a state’s ability to restrict health information just because its leaders disapprove of it.

Does this ban violate freedom of speech?

I have no doubt that it does.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a similar question more than 50 years ago in Bigelow v. Virginia. In that 1975 case, the court examined whether it is legal to provide residents of a state that restricts abortion with truthful information about how to get an abortion in another state.

The justices found that those ads constituted speech on a “topic of great public concern,” meaning that they are fully protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.

And it is a bedrock principle of free speech law, repeatedly reinforced by the Supreme Court, that a state cannot ban speech based on its content or point of view.

South Dakota’s law violates this principle of “viewpoint neutrality” because it does not restrict ads that say abortion pills are immoral or dangerous. It punishes only advertisements that promote........

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