Dupage Policy Journal

Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation for the Thomas More Society, is celebrating a federal judge’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction against a law that would have allowed legal action targeting the speech of pregnancy care centers. Breen, a former state representative from DuPage County, presented the case representing the National Institute of Family Life Advocates and various pro-life ministries, which included pregnancy care centers located in Illinois. 

“Free Speech won today in the Land of Lincoln — pro-life advocates across Illinois can breathe a sigh of relief they won’t be pursued for ‘misinformation’ by Attorney General Kwame Raoul,” Breen said to Effingham Radio. “Across the nation, pregnancy help ministries are being discriminated against by laws that target their life-affirming work. The injunction granted today sends a strong, clear message to the country that the First Amendment protects pro-life speech.”

The judge’s ruling, based on First Amendment grounds, ignited a debate between abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion groups over the free speech rights of these centers, which provide support to pregnant individuals, according to WTTW. The lawsuit was launched by Thomas More Society to stop SB 1909, which provided a legal mechanism to block pregnancy resource centers from seeking to attract would-be mothers that may be considering getting an abortion. 

The judge issued a preliminary injunction on the grounds that the law likely violated the First Amendment, causing a conflict between abortion rights advocates who claim these centers employ deceptive tactics and anti-abortion groups asserting their First Amendment rights, WTTW reported.

Judge Iain Johnston’s ruling on the matter was a harsh rebuke of the Illinois lawmakers who passed the bill, according to Capitol News Illinois.

“Justice Scalia once said that he wished all federal judges were given a stamp that read ‘stupid but constitutional,’” Johnston said to Capitol News Illinois. “SB 1909 is both stupid and very likely unconstitutional.”

“In short, the law openly targets alleged pro-life ‘misinformation’ on the basis that that pro-life views conflict with Illinois’s rampant pro-abortion ideology,” the Thomas More Society wrote on its website. “But in doing so, the law runs headlong into bedrock protections of the First Amendment, which prohibit government from cutting off one side of ongoing controversies by censoring speech with which it disagrees, and from discriminating against religiously motivated speech.

“The ‘Deceptive Practices of Limited Services Pregnancy Centers Act’ is a blatant attempt to stamp out access to vital women’s pregnancy resources across the state, simply because pregnancy help centers do not provide abortions and 'emergency contraception,'” the website continued.