Get a free copy of Parental Rights & Education when you subscribe to our newsletter!
Ruling states that the effort by Letitia James to ban pro-life organizations from sharing information about abortion reversal treatment is not only a violation of the First Amendment but an attempt to set up an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”
A U.S. district court judge has issued an injunction blocking New York Attorney General Letitia James from silencing three pro-life organizations’ speech about abortion-pill reversal.
James announced earlier this year that she was suing Heartbeat International, a group of thousands of pro-life centers that refer pregnant women for abortion pill reversal, and 11 New York pro-life clinics that offer the medical treatment for what she alleges is “dangerous and false advertising.”
James claims the process is untested and unsafe.
Following James’s announcement of an intent to sue, three pro-life groups preemptively filed a suit against her in May, claiming that she is censoring speech due to the viewpoint of the speakers and the content of the message.
National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, Gianna’s House, and Options Care Center claim that abortion pill reversal is safe.
The process consists of providing a woman who has started a chemical abortion with supplemental progesterone. This will counteract the effects of the first step in the two-step chemical abortion, in which the drug Mifepristone cuts the flow of naturally occurring progesterone to the unborn baby, ultimately starving it and killing it. The second drug, Misoprostol, taken 48 hours later, then causes the woman’s uterus to contract and expel the dead fetus.
According to Heartbeat International, by flooding the body with progesterone the abortion reversal treatment process allows women to change their mind about abortion and rescue their babies from death. To be effective, the process must be taken soon after ingesting Mifepristone, optimally within 48 hours.
The plaintiffs’ legal representation Alliance Defending Freedom stated, “Multiple studies support the information the centers wish to provide women. The body uses progesterone naturally to sustain pregnancy, and medical professionals have used it for decades to prevent miscarriage and forestall preterm labor safely and effectively.”
In fact, statistics show that abortion pill reversal “has likely saved over 5,000 unborn lives and has up to a 64-68% success rate.”
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge John Sinatra Jr. ruled in favor of the pro-life organizations, explaining that the government’s efforts to control what it deems to be unapproved speech violates the First Amendment.
Citing the dystopian classic 1984, Sinatra chastised the state for acting in an Orwellian fashion, writing,
“…our Constitution and Constitutional tradition stand ‘against the idea that we need Oceania’s Ministry of Truth.’ In fact, if an ‘interest in truthful discourse alone [were] sufficient to sustain a ban on speech, absent any evidence that the speech was used to gain a material advantage, it would give government a broad censorial power unprecedented in the [Supreme] Court’s cases or in our constitutional tradition.’”
He further stated,
“‘…the mere potential for the exercise of that power casts a chill, a chill the First Amendment cannot permit if free speech, thought, and discourse are to remain a foundation of our freedom.’ Fundamentally, freedom of speech and thought ‘flows not from the beneficence of the state but from the inalienable rights of the person.’ Suppression ‘of speech by the government can make exposure of falsity more difficult, not less so’. Society ‘has the right and civic duty to engage in open, dynamic, rational discourse’—ends that ‘are not well served when the government seeks to orchestrate public discussion through content-based mandates.’”
The judge rejected the State’s argument that the pro-life groups’ advertisement of abortion pill reversal was “commercial speech” which could be regulated. Sinatra, Jr. noted that the plaintiffs receive no financial compensation and their services are free. “In short, a ‘morally and religiously motivated’ offering of free services cannot be described as a ‘bare commercial transaction.’’”
He reasoned, “Nothing could be fundamentally less commercial than this speech about how a woman might save her pregnancy.”
This entire ruling was a very forceful verbal slap to a government official that has clearly lost sight of the Constitution and the limited powers of the state. Just look at this paragraph:
“The First Amendment protects Plaintiffs’ right to speak freely about [abortion pill reversal] protocol and, more specifically, to say that it is safe and effective for a pregnant woman to use in consultation with her doctor. Indeed, the ‘very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion.’ To ‘this end, the government, even with the purest of motives, may not substitute its judgment as to how best to speak for that of speakers and listeners; free and robust debate cannot thrive if directed by the government.’ And this is particularly true ‘in the fields of medicine and public health, where information can save lives.’”
This is a very critical point. Even if the government had pure motives, it is unconstitutional for it to claim it is the sole authority on determining fact and error, truth and falsehood, nor does it have the right to control what people may say, write, read, or hear.
And when the subject is medical, lives are at stake. The government has no authority to silence discussion of medical options.
The government can outlaw dangerous and provenly harmful medical practices, such as euthanasia, but that isn’t what James is attempting to do. She is trying to silence the advertisement of a medical treatment that has been shown to be safe, largely natural, effective, and life-saving. There are thousands of women who can attest to that fact with indisputable evidence: their born and thriving children.
James isn’t the only one trying to intimidate pro-life centers. The State of Illinois tried to criminalize and shut down pro-life clinics based on they do not provide abortion. The judge in that case blocked the law, calling it “stupid” and “painfully and blatantly a violation of the First Amendment.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has also sued pro-life clinics, claiming they are misleading patients. Thomas More Society, representing Heartbeat International, has asked a state court to throw out the case out on First Amendment groups.
Several lawmakers have taken to publicly smearing and threatening crisis pregnancy centers, with U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., even describing them as “brainwashing cult clinics.”
What’s clear is these left-wing politicians don’t have the “purest of motives,” as they are engaging in viewpoint discrimination. They are trying to shut down their ideological opponents. And why? Because they provide free diapers? Because they provide parenting education? Because they offer women other options than abortion?
That is the key. These politicians love abortion, and as a result they won’t tolerate a group who wants to stop — or reverse — a single one.
If you like this article and other content that helps you apply a biblical worldview to today’s politics and culture, consider making a donation here.
