The latest state to attack pro-life pregnancy centers
By Rev. James Harden
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a blatantly anti-pro-life law on July 27, 2023. The law, under the guise of protecting women from consumer fraud, went into effect immediately. Threatening $50,000 fines and corporate dissolution if pregnancy centers failed to use state-sanctioned speech supporting and promoting abortion in direct opposition to their pro-life mission, the law would have made criminals of every pregnancy center in the state.
On Thursday, Aug. 3, U.S. District Court Judge Iain Johnston of the Northern District of Illinois granted a preliminary injunction to pro-life pregnancy centers, halting the law, saying, "Justice Scalia once said that he wished all federal judges were given a stamp that read 'stupid but constitutional.' [This Law] is both stupid and very likely unconstitutional."
Despite the profoundly obvious First and 14th Amendment violations, pro-abortion laws like this represent, on Jan. 3, I predicted "… the pro-abortion empire and those politicians and big corporations that protect it will increase attacks against pro-life people and organizations." And so they have.
This Illinois law is not an isolated incident. It's part of a coordinated legal attack on pro-life Christians' right to remain publicly pro-life. The following is a sample of additional examples:
- New York enacted legislation to investigate pro-life pregnancy centers without cause. Why? To circumvent the justice system, vilifying these centers with unfounded allegations of engaging in misinformation.
- Vermont passed legislation fining pregnancy centers $10,000 per occurrence for what they refer to as misleading women, again without evidence or accusation by anyone – similar to the law passed in Illinois.
- President Biden signed an executive order for the Justice Department to investigate the "deceptive and fraudulent practices" of pregnancy centers, without cause.
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren demands pregnancy centers be shut down for unfounded claims of harming women through misinformation.
- Activist lawyers are continuing the goals of pro-abortion Antifa to shut down all public pro-life speech and services with the unfounded rhetoric that pro-life organizations harm women by lying, misleading, or misinforming them in marketing or in services.
Meanwhile, these same pro-life pregnancy centers have been attacked by the Antifa domestic extremist group Jane's Revenge, using the same terminology employed by pro-abortion politicians, claiming pro-lifers lie and mislead women in order to make them a permanent socio-economic underclass.
While the weaponization of legislation ramps up, the FBI turns a blind eye to the pro-abortion Antifa domestic terror, treating the pro-life victims as criminals themselves. There have been at least 88 attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers since the leak of the Dobbs case decision – over 300 total attacks on pro-life organizations. Yet there have been no criminal convictions.
Whistleblowers coming out of the FBI even claim the Bureau is investigating pregnancy centers. On Aug. 9, Rep. Jim Jordan's House Judiciary Committee revealed a new level of corruption within the FBI. The Committee sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, accusing him of lying again in his recent July 12 testimony to the committee – under oath! – regarding the targeting of pro-life Catholics. Despite Wray's July 12 claims, it appears that there was cooperation from multiple field offices, including in the Antifa capital of the U.S., Portland, Oregon, in the effort to tag pro-life Catholics as domestic terror threats instead of the pro-abortion Antifa who are committing federally defined acts of domestic terror.
The abortion industry and those who support it don't want the truth to get out about the daily criminal conduct, revictimization of women through chemical abortion like the 16-year-old rape victim in New York, or the cover-up for rapists in order to exploit the plight of a poor 10-year-old Ohio girl.
Abortion is a billion-dollar industry that gets politicians elected. On the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election and a possible shift in the congressional balance of power back to pro-abortion politicians, all people need to remember that human dignity begins when a human begins – at fertilization. This dignity is anchored in the fact that we are all made in the image of God and are therefore equally valuable, deserving of protection without qualification.
All people need to remember that the United States government is based on the rule of law, creating stable civil order throughout generations. This rule of law maintains accountability to a standard of justice that transcends time and any given cultural whim by appealing to rights innate to the human condition under God. After all, "we are endowed by our Creator [not our government] with certain unalienable rights."
Rev. James Harden, M.Div. is a medical ethicist, author of the newly published "Ethical Theory and Pertinent Standards in Women's Reproductive Health," the CEO of CompassCare Pregnancy Services, and pioneered the first measurable and repeatable medical model in the pregnancy center movement. He has written extensively on medical ethics and pro-life policy and developed materials and strategies used by hundreds of pregnancy centers nationwide.
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