States are increasingly taking action against pregnancy centers, with pro-life groups and public interest law firms pushing back.
Pro-abortion state and local governments are filing lawsuits to shut down pro-life pregnancy help organizations that encourage women considering an abortion to seek alternatives.
Pregnancy help organizations, or PHOs, are pro-life nonprofits that provide a range of services to women facing unintended pregnancies, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
Support services include pregnancy testing, parental education, and housing assistance. PHOs operate help centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies, and social services agencies.
Some PHOs promote abortion pill reversal services for women who change their minds midway through a medication abortion, while others provide sidewalk counseling in which supporters approach pregnant women outside abortion clinics to discuss alternatives.
Attorneys at public interest law firms say blue states have escalated their campaigns against the groups since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. In Dobbs, the U.S. Supreme Court held there was no constitutional right to abortion and returned regulation of the procedure to the states.
Pro-abortion governments say PHOs are a threat to public health. They say the organizations misinform consumers, interfere with women seeking abortions at clinics by approaching them to discuss abortion alternatives, and jeopardize women’s health by promoting abortion pill reversal, a protocol they say is unproven and potentially unsafe.
Blue States
Peter Breen, executive vice president at the Thomas More Society, said the states most active in pursuing PHOs are California, New York, and Illinois.
“The blue states are absolutely cracking down on pro-life advocacy, peaceful First Amendment-protected speech and on providing help to pregnant women in need,” said Breen, a former Republican Floor Leader in the Illinois House of Representatives, where he served from 2015 to 2019.
“They want to now forbid any sort of dissent from their abortion agenda,” he told The Epoch Times. “The pro-life movement is not going to take it lying down.”
After the Illinois Legislature passed a bill, and it was enacted as law, declaring “pregnancy center speech to be misinformation,” the Thomas More Society challenged it in court and prevailed, he said.
