There is a totalitarian strain in the pro-abortion mindset, particularly here in New York. They’re not satisfied merely with having unlimited abortion with no legal limits at any stage in pregnancy. They feel compelled to suppress any opposition to abortion and to force everyone to approve of it.
We see this in the latest attack on pregnancy centers by the state’s attorney general. She has threatened to sue some of the centers for making allegedly misleading statements about the possibility that chemical abortions can be reversed. [Update: She filed the lawsuit on May 6.]
The case doesn’t have a legal or scientific leg to stand on, but now the centers are forced to spend their time and energy in court, instead of in the vital work of helping vulnerable mothers.
The Facts About Abortion Pill Reversal
To understand the context, here is a short overview of abortion pill reversal. I am neither a scientist nor a medical professional, so I am going to keep this as general as possible. For more information, check out this website.
The abortion pill is a two-pill process intended to kill and expel a developing child from the womb in the first ten weeks of pregnancy. The first drug is mifepristone. Its only purpose is to kill a baby in the womb by denying her nutrition and oxygen. The second drug, misoprostol is used for legitimate purposes but is also used for chemical abortions as well. According to recent reports, over 60% of abortions are currently performed this way.
Some women change their minds about the abortion after taking the first pill. Abortion pill reversal is designed to help them. It involves a dose of the natural hormone progesterone, administered after the first abortion pill.
For almost 20 years, doctors have been studying abortion pill reversal. These studies show that in some cases, the progesterone will counteract the effects of the first abortion drug, mifepristone, and allow the pregnancy to continue normally. It is not perfect, but the studies have found that it is successful in as many as two-thirds of cases when it is properly administered.
It also is very safe for the mother. Doctors routinely prescribe progesterone to pregnant women who are at risk of miscarriage and for lots of other reasons. It is a perfectly safe medicine with virtually no negative side effects.
Many pro-life pregnancy centers tell mothers about abortion pill reversal, and refer them to doctors who may go on to treat them with it. And remember, all services at these pregnancy centers are offered free of charge – unlike the abortion industry, which makes hundreds of millions of dollars each year (much of which is taxpayer money) in the business of killing unborn children.
One would think that a movement that is supposedly all about “choice” would embrace a tool that women can use to choose to continue their pregnancy.
But that wouldn’t account for the absolutism of the pro-abortion mindset.
Pro-Abortion Extremists with Power
It’s no mystery that the highest positions of New York State government are occupied by people who are deeply committed to abortion ideology. And New York has a long track record of abortion extremism.
The governor, attorney general, and legislative leaders have supported every pro-abortion bill that has been proposed in Albany. Those include using taxpayer money to support staffing abortion clinics, to pay for new child-killing technology, and to pay for women to travel from out of state to have abortions here (even if their abortion was illegal in their home state). They have also supported an amendment to the state constitution that would enshrine abortion as a fundamental right.
The attorney general has been fighting for abortion in court as well. She has filed briefs in support of the pro-abortion laws of other states. She has singled out pro-life protestors for punishment. And she has been fighting for years against a lawsuit by religious organizations that don’t want to pay for abortions in their employee health plans.
These are not the acts of an even-handed government that is seeking to represent all the people of the state. They represent the abuse of power to serve an ideological goal of promoting abortion.
The Latest Attack
In this most recent incident, the attorney general has served a number of pregnancy center with letters threatening litigation. The bare, unsupported allegation in these letters is that the centers are providing false and misleading information about the abortion pill reversals. But that itself is false — the pregnancy centers, at most, are telling women that there are encouraging studies about the safety and effectiveness of the medicine, or are simply referring women to doctors who can serve them.
If the attorney general follows through on this threat, the centers could be held liable for monetary damages, legal fees, and crippling injunctions.
It’s worth noting that the attorney general has never done anything about the false statements by the abortion industry that claim abortion pill reversals are unsafe and ineffective. And her own office has those same false statements on its official website.
Aside from the factual emptiness of these complaints, there is no legal basis for it. The law that the attorney general relies on is aimed at commercial advertising, not at statements made by non-profits about services offered for free. Courts have repeatedly held that the government has no role in determining what is “misleading” or “false” when there is a legitimate debate taking place over scientific or medical matters that have significant public interest.
It is also a clear violation of the Free Speech Clauses of both the federal and state constitutions to single out and try to punish a viewpoint that the government happens to disagree with. Nor is the government permitted to force people to say things they disagree with or that violate their religious beliefs.
These threats against pregnancy centers are a naked attempt to intimidate them into silence. They are designed to scare the volunteers who run these centers on a shoestring, when faced with the virtually unlimited resources and power of the state government. The message is clear – sit down and shut up if you disagree with us, or else…
That’s totalitarianism in its most blunt form.
What Happens Next
Fortunately, the pro-life movement is rallying around the pregnancy centers. The Thomas More Society has already filed a lawsuit against the attorney general, and it is likely that more lawsuits will follow.
Litigation, unfortunately, takes a long time and is very costly. The organizations across the country that defend the pro-life movement, like Thomas More, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Becket deserve our support and out prayers.
The ultimate defense against any campaign against the cause of life is the truth. Our movement has proven over and over again that we will not be intimidated, we will defend our rights,and we will never stop speaking the truth about the inherent dignity of all human lives.
Stepping Out of the Boat 