Linda Greenhouse writes in the New York Times that “the noose is tightening around women’s access to abortion.” Developing this singularly inapt metaphor, she notes various state regulations of abortion and then adds,

And of course there’s the Trump administration’s plan to forbid medical professionals in clinics that receive federal money from providing their patients with pertinent and truthful information about abortion. This proposal, aimed at Planned Parenthood, is a clear suppression of free speech that flies in the face of the robust First Amendment that has evolved since the Supreme Court, by a 5 to 4 vote, upheld an earlier abortion gag rule 27 years ago.

There is a lot of misinformation about the new Title X regulations, and the misleading description Greenhouse offers here only adds to the confusion.

Under the new regulations, doctors at federally funded family planning clinics can discuss abortion with patients. Federal law requires that this counseling be “nondirective,” that is, that it neither promotes nor discourages abortion. The new regulations are faithful to that law, which is in no way a bar on the provision of information. The regulations also forbid doctors at these clinics from making appointments for patients to get abortions and from making referrals for abortions. If a patient says that she wants an abortion, the doctor may provide her with a list of medical facilities, some of which perform abortions. There is only one way the regulations impinge on the provision of “pertinent and truthful information about abortion”: A doctor at a federally funded clinic cannot say, “Here’s a list of abortion providers in the area.”

Does that “clearly” suppress free speech, as Greenhouse alleges? In the Rust v. Sullivan decision to which Greenhouse refers, the Court upheld a much more restrictive regulation, one that banned counseling about abortion. (Justice Anthony Kennedy was in the majority, in case you’re wondering.) One of the dissenters, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, declined to rule on whether that regulation violated the First Amendment; she would have decided the case on statutory grounds. If the new regulation violates the First Amendment, the policy of requiring participating clinics to make abortion referrals — a policy in operation since the end of the Clinton administration — violates it as well, by compelling speech. Perhaps the robustness of the Court’s free-speech jurisprudence is not, in reality, a major concern for Greenhouse.