Judge Blocks New York AG Letitia James from Silencing Pro-Life Ministries on Abortion-Pill Reversal

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking New York attorney general Letitia James from silencing the constitutionally protected speech of two pro-life organizations that are working to share information about the safety and efficacy of “abortion-pill reversal.”

The ruling on Tuesday comes more than a month after the Thomas More Society filed a federal lawsuit against James on behalf of the two pro-life ministries, Summit Life Outreach Center and the Evergreen Association. The suit accused James of threatening, prosecuting, and intimidating the state’s pregnancy-help organizations in violation of the First and 14th Amendments.

James filed lawsuits against eleven pregnancy resource centers in May, accusing the centers of giving “false and misleading statements to advertise an unproven treatment they call ‘abortion pill reversal [APR].’”

While Summit Life Outreach Center and the Evergreen Association were not among the centers directly targeted by the lawsuits, they argue James’s bullying of other pregnancy resource centers puts them at risk and led them to limit and altogether avoid the promotion of abortion-pill reversal on their social-media platforms and websites.

“This injunction marks a critical victory for New York’s pregnancy help organizations and another blow to Letitia James’ unconstitutional witch-hunt against pro-life ministries,” Peter Breen, head of litigation for the Thomas More Society, said about this week’s ruling. “These small nonprofits, which exist to compassionately serve women and offer them alternatives to abortion, deserve to have their speech elevated—not chilled.”

Breen says the order “makes clear Ms. James cannot censor pro-life speech purely because she dislikes it.”

James has  accused the eleven pregnancy resource centers of “repeated and persistent misleading statements and omissions” about abortion-pill reversal. 

Thomas More Society is representing those centers in a separate case against James. In that case, a different judge ruled last month that the First Amendment protects the groups’ right to speak about abortion-pill reversal. “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,’” the judge said.

The groups in both lawsuits argue that the information they are sharing with women is both true and constitutionally protected.

Abortion-pill reversal is a short-hand  to describe the use of high doses of progesterone to counteract the effects of the mifepristone abortion pill, which works by lowering progesterone levels in pregnant women. Progesterone is needed to produce the nutrients needed for an unborn baby to survive.

The use of progesterone in pregnant women is not new or controversial: it has been used to prevent miscarriages for years and has a proven record of safety and efficacy. More than 5,000 babies have been saved through “abortion-pill reversal” to date, according to the Abortion Pill Rescue Network.

“Our staff and volunteers at Summit Life Outreach Center work tirelessly to provide life-affirming options for women in need,” said Barbara Bidak, the executive director of Summit Life Outreach Center. “We’re incredibly pleased a federal judge has now made clear that Attorney General Letitia James’ legal attacks on our state’s pro-life ministries unconstitutionally chills our First Amendment right to share the lifesaving message of Abortion Pill Reversal—which gives pregnant moms in the middle of a chemical abortion a second chance to choose life.”