Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Signs Bill Targeting Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers
Democrat Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill on Thursday that would target pro-life pregnancy centers by cracking down on so-called “deceptive practices” that dissuade women from women from aborting their unborn babies.
The bill, SB 1909, claims Illinoisans have been “misled” by crisis pregnancy centers, and that the state “has an interest to protect against deceptive, fraudulent, and misleading advertising and practices that interfere with an individual’s ability to make autonomous, informed, and evidence-based decisions about the individual’s reproductive health and have timely access to quality reproductive health care that adheres to accepted standards of medical practice or care.”
The bill also gives the Illinois Attorney General Office the ability to determine what deception is or “omission of material fact.” Centers in violation of the law could be fined up to $50,000.
“Women need access to comprehensive, fact-based healthcare when making critical decision about their own health—not manipulation or misinformation from politically motivated, non-medical actors,”Pritzker said in a statement. “By empowering the Attorney General’s office to battle deceptive practices, we’re ensuring Illinoisans can make their own decisions about their bodies using accurate and safe information.”
“If you’re a poor woman in Illinois facing an untimely pregnancy, J.B. Pritzker and the Democrats want you to have only one option: abortion,” Scheidler said. “That’s what SB 1909 is all about: protecting abortionists’ profits while depriving women of the help they’re seeking from pro-life pregnancy centers. But this attack on the welfare of poor women and the civil rights of pro-life advocates will not stand. It is patently unconstitutional, and we’re going to fight it in court—and win.”
Right after the governor signed the bill, Thomas More Society attorneys filed a federal lawsuit against Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, seeking to stop him from enforcing the legislation.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Western Division, seeks a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, and permanent injunction against SB 1909. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), Women’s Pregnancy Services, Rockford Family Initiative, Relevant Pregnancy Options Center, and Pro-Life Action League.
Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive vice president and head of litigation, and a former Illinois State Legislator, said in a statement that the bill is a “blatant attempt to chill and silence pro-life speech under the guise of ‘consumer protection.'”
“Pregnancy help ministries provide real options and assistance to women and families in need, but instead of the praise they deserve, pro-abortion politicians are targeting these ministries with $50,000 fines and injunctions solely because of their pro-life viewpoint,” Breen said.
The complaint alleges that the bill, which is a revision to the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, allows the state to curtail the speech of pro-life organizations by illegally targeting their efforts to “dissuade pregnant [women] from considering abortion care.” The bill also faults pro-life organizations for “pay[ing] for advertising… that is intended to attract consumers to their organizations and away from medical providers that offer” abortions, accusing the pro-life organizations of providing misleading information “overstating the risks associated with abortion.” Breen argues that all of the abortion-related information provided by these pro-life centers and organizations is backed by scientific research.
“In addition to being unconstitutional and extremely prejudicial state officials have not had cause to take legal action against pregnancy help centers, using the tools of the law that were already available,” Breen added.
Breen further alleged that Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents obtained from the state attorney general’s office revealed that “the Attorney General has received zero complaints from members of the public against an Illinois Pregnancy Help Center for alleged violations of the Deceptive Business Practices Act.”
It should be emphasized that crisis pregnancy centers — instead of abortion — offer support for pregnant women in need who choose life for their unborn child. They also often offer help after the baby is born. The Charlotte Lozier Institute conducted a study of 2,700 pregnancy help centers in 2020 and found that in 2019, these U.S. clinics “served roughly two million women, men, and youth with services estimated at a value of over $266 million. This outreach was accomplished through 14,977 total staff and 53,855 total volunteers, of which over 10,200 were licensed medical professionals (3,791 as staff and 6,424 as volunteers).”
The report details:
Medical services were provided by an increasing number of centers since last counted in 2017 [13] with: free obstetrical ultrasound services provided at 2,132 centers (79 percent), STD/STI Testing provided at 810 centers (30 percent), and STD/STI Treatment provided at 563 centers (21 percent). [14] In addition, 486,213 pregnancy confirmation ultrasounds, 731,884 pregnancy tests, 160,201 STI tests, and 967,251 consultations with new (unique) clients were all provided at little or no cost. [15]
…
PHCs were shown to be rich resources for support and education to improve maternal, child, youth and family health all at no cost, including: Prenatal and Parenting Classes at 2,312 centers (86 percent), Childbirth Classes at 742 centers (27 percent), Breastfeeding Consultations at 518 centers (19 percent), After-Abortion Support and Recovery at 1,931 centers (72 percent), Fertility Awareness-Based Methods at 188 centers (7 percent), Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Presentations to youth through 979 centers (36 percent).
PHCs also widely provided Material Item Services at 2,525 centers (94 percent). These items included: 1,290,079 packs of diapers, 689,382 packs of wipes, 30,445 new car seats, 2,033,513 baby clothing outfits, and 19,249 strollers.
The study also found these clinics report high client satisfaction (99 percent, on average per center), and are estimated to have saved 886,125 unborn lives since 2008.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.
AJ Hurley: ‘We Need a Congressional Hearing’ for the Five Late-Term Aborted Babies Discovered in DC
Left-wing pro-life activists allegedly discovered the remains of approximately 115 aborted babies in Washington, D.C., on March 25, 2022, five of whom they say might have been partially aborted or killed after birth in violation of federal law.
Founder and Executive Director of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) Terrisa Bukovinac and the group’s director of activism, Lauren Handy, said they recovered the infants from Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services outside of the Washington Surgi-Center. The pair allegedly convinced the waste services driver to give them one of the boxes, telling him it likely contained “dead babies” and that they would give them a proper burial and funeral. Curtis Bay has previously denied any involvement.
Bukovinac and Handy then allegedly took the box and brought it back to Handy’s apartment. There, they opened the box and the red plastic bag inside to find the remains of 110 mostly first-trimester aborted children. At the bottom of the box was a clear plastic bag with five more containers, Bukovinac described at the time. Those allegedly held the remains of five late-term aborted babies, which PAAU named Christopher X, Harriet, Phoenix, Holly, and Angel.
Warning: graphic and disturbing content
“At the bottom of the box was a clear plastic bag with five more containers. One much bigger than the remaining four. Lauren reached into the largest bucket and removed the remains of a beautiful, intact, and nearly full-term baby boy we named Christopher X,” Bukovinac said in a press conference last year. “I think I can speak for both Lauren and I when I say this was the most devastating and soul-crushing experience of our lives. Not even years of anti-abortion advocacy could have prepared us for that moment.”
Bukovinac said they found four more late-term aborted babies with “a range of injuries, including a fully intact girl we named Harriet, who had one eye open and an incision in the back of her neck, her brain suctioned out, and her skull crushed.”
PAAU believes the abortions were performed by Dr. Cesare Santangelo, who operates out of the Washington Surgi-Center. He is the same abortionist who was recorded in 2012 allegedly saying he would allow babies to die if they were born alive during an abortion.
AJ Hurley, who works as Live Action’s director of activism, was with Handy and Bukovinac shortly after their horrific discovery and saw the aborted babies first-hand. Breitbart News interviewed Hurley on July 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the Turning Point Action Conference.
“I’m a pediatric neonatal respiratory therapist. I worked at UCLA for about seven years, so I am used to seeing very small children. I can tell you every single one of those children were at gestational ages where they could have lived outside of the womb with little to zero help at all,” Hurley said. “One of the babies was basically a full-term child. And to be honest with you, it was like looking into pure depravity. I mean, honestly….how in the world could you ever do something to such a precious child? I think abortion is the most vile thing that we, as Americans, could potentially ever support. I’m on a rampage, honestly, just to expose it to the world because it shouldn’t be supported like this.”
Hurley described the condition of some of the babies and alleged that there is “overwhelming evidence, prima facie evidence of infanticide and that some of these babies have been born alive.” PAAU said it believes the babies could have been aborted in violation of the Partial Birth Abortion Act as well as the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.
“One of the babies was still in its amniotic sack. So the question is, and especially from a medical perspective, how in the world do you kill a baby and have it not come out alive, and it still be completely intact in an undisturbed amniotic sac?” Hurley added. “It’s not possible.”
Early media reports indicated the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department went to Handy’s home to investigate a tip about “potential bio-hazard material” before the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ultimately collected the children’s remains. Soon after, Handy and several other PAAU group members were charged for an unrelated incident. According to the far-left New York Times, Handy is one of several PAAU group members who is facing charges for “directing eight other people who used their bodies, furniture, chains and ropes” to block the doors of the Washington Surgi-Clinic on October 22, 2020. That case is still ongoing.
Contrary to pro-life activists’ findings, Executive Assistant Chief of Police Ashan M. Benedict said in a news conference after the discovery that the babies “were aborted in accordance with D.C. law, so we are not investigating this incident along those lines.”
“There doesn’t seem to be anything criminal in nature right now about that, except for how they got into this house,” Benedict said. “So we’ll continue to look at that.”
News of PAAU’s horrific discovery made its way to Congress. On April 5, 2022, more than 20 members of Congress sent a letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s (D) office, as well as the D.C. metro police, demanding an autopsy and a full investigation into the deaths of the five babies who were allegedly aborted by Santangelo at the Washington Surgi-Center.
Bowser responded to the letter by singling out PAAU activist Lauren Handy and calling her actions “extremist anti-abortion activity.”
“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is in consultation with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia on both matters,” Bowser said at the time, adding that both the October 2020 incident and Handy’s involvement in finding the babies’ bodies are “potentially, serious violations of federal law.”
Breitbart News did not receive a response to a request for comments this week from the medical examiner’s office or the mayor’s office. DCPD told Breitbart News on Tuesday that the deaths of the five late-term aborted babies are part of “an open investigation.”
“We do not have any additional information to provide at this time,” the department said via email.
Even though many lawmakers have brought attention to the deaths of the five babies, Hurley and PAAU are calling for Republicans to hold a congressional hearing.
“We need a congressional hearing on this matter. This should not be happening,” Hurley said. “And the fact that this could happen behind closed doors — this is a random box that [they] happened to find. I mean, I was outside of Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood in New York. That day alone, they unloaded 12 boxes into the truck….it just begs the question: how many of these situations are happening like this, behind closed doors, and nobody is ever seeing — and even when they do see it, they’re covering it up?”
On Tuesday, Bukovinac told Breitbart News over the phone that PAAU has been “lobbying full time” in the House and visiting many members of Congress asking for a hearing.
“We have specifically been in talks with Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-TX) office. I have spoken with some other high-profile pro-life leaders who have agreed to help spearhead a coalition letter and some further meetings with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) on this issue,” she said. Breitbart News reached out to the offices of those congressmen for comment and confirmation but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Bukovinac emphasized that lawmakers should not “let this moment go” and the chance to uncover the atrocities of late-term abortion.
“From our perspective, this is the pathway to a national ban. How can we possibly move forward with banning abortion at any stage in pregnancy if we’re not at least showing the American people exactly what happened to these victims,” she said. “And this is the most significant discovery of fetal remains in our generation. If we let this moment go, if we let it go too long without addressing it, then we’re missing our best opportunity to at least end abortion in elective cases beyond viability.”
RELATED: Pro-Lifers Pop 1,350 Balloons in Protest — One for Every Abortion via Abortion Pill in the U.S. Every Day
Matt Perdie / Breitbart NewsKatherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.
Radical Ohio Abortion Amendment to Appear on November Ballot
A radical abortion amendment will be on the November ballot in Ohio, which would enshrine abortion-on-demand into the state constitution if passed.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) announced on Tuesday that the left-wing coalition, Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, submitted nearly 496,000 valid signatures, surpassing the 413,487 signatures needed to be placed in the November 7 election ballot. The coalition pushing for unfettered abortion access includes groups like the ACLU of Ohio, Planned Parenthood, and URGE, a group that has long campaigned to end parental involvement laws.
“Every person deserves respect, dignity, and the right to make reproductive health care decisions, including those related to their own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion free from government interference,” Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights Executive Committee members Lauren Blauvelt and Dr. Lauren Beene said in a statement.
“Now that the petition drive is complete, we’re eager to continue the campaign to enshrine those rights in Ohio’s Constitution and ensure that Ohioans will never again be subject to draconian reproductive health care policies imposed by extremists.”
An August 8 special election could determine the likelihood of the abortion amendment’s passage. In August, Ohioans will have the opportunity to vote on Issue 1, an amendment that would raise the threshold to pass future amendments to the state constitution from 50 percent to 60 percent.
Proponents of Issue 1 say the amendment will protect Ohio’s constitution for out-of-state special interest groups that “too often circumvent the legislature and buy their way into the constitution,” like the local affiliates of national pro-abortion groups pushing the abortion-on-demand amendment.
State Rep. Brian Stewart (R), who was instrumental in getting the threshold question on the ballot in August, told Breitbart News in April that there is plenty of precedent for going beyond simple majority votes in states that allow outside groups to propose constitutional amendments.
“Florida requires 60 percent for all constitutional amendments. Colorado — a blue state — requires 55 percent for amendments. New Hampshire requires 66 percent for amendments. Arizona requires 60 percent for amendments that would increase taxes,” Stewart said. “So there’s a lot of precedent for moving in this direction, and we think it’s time to finally get it done.”
Opponents of Issue 1, including the left-wing coalition members, view the amendment as an effort to stop their abortion-on-demand agenda in the state. Even so, many coalition members’ own constitutions require supermajorities to amend their bylaws.
The language of the abortion ballot initiative is extremely broad and makes no differentiation between minors and adults, instead opting to use the term “individual.”
The abortion ballot measure states that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.”
RELATED: GROSS! Abortion Activist with Red Stain on Crotch Lies in Front of Supreme Court
Under the amendment, the state would also not be allowed to:
…directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the state demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individuals health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.
The ACLU of Ohio, a coalition member, is responsible for crafting the broad language of the proposed abortion amendment, along with other groups like Planned Parenthood. Left-wing fact-checkers have quickly asserted that the amendment would not impact parental rights. But when local media questioned the ACLU of Ohio as to if the language of the measure would undo parental consent and notification laws, the organization vaguely indicated that those laws would not stand if the amendment passes.
“When you pass a constitutional amendment, it doesn’t just automatically erase everything and start over. But it would mean that laws that conflict with it cannot be enforced, should not be enforced,” said Jessie Hill, an attorney for the ACLU of Ohio.
RELATED: Medical Organizations Promote Abortion Above the Health of Women
Matt Perdie / Breitbart NewsCritics of the ballot measure — constitutional scholars Carrie Campbell Severino, President of the Judicial Crisis Network, and Frank J. Scaturro, a former special counsel to the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives — have urgently warned that the amendment would decimate parental rights.
In an analysis of the proposed amendment, Severino and Scaturro wrote that the amendment is being largely and incorrectly framed as a means of adding a right to abortion in the state constitution. Instead, they argue that the proposal is:
[S]o broadly worded that it would prevent the legislature not only from requiring the consent of parents before their child pursues a particular procedure, but also from requiring mere notification of parents — well short of the power to veto their child’s decision — before the procedure takes place.
They further contend the text goes beyond abortion because of the use of the broad term “reproductive decisions.”
“By explicitly defining such decisions as ‘not limited to’ the enumerated categories, the proposal establishes its scope as sweeping,” they wrote.
RELATED: Exclusive — Hawley: Left Pushing Gender Ideology on Children Is “Latest Frontier” of Attack on Nuclear Family
Jack Knudsen / Breitbart News“A natural reading would extend to any medical procedure that involves the human reproductive system, including sex-change surgery,” they continued:
The language also applies to individuals without any age qualification, so the proposal makes no distinction between adults and minors. Additional language would deny parents the right to any intervention on behalf of their children that would discourage them from obtaining the procedure in question.
A group that describes itself as a pro-woman, pro-parents statewide coalition, Protect Women Ohio (PWO), has launched a multimillion-dollar statewide television and digital ad campaign against the proposed amendment in response to the left-wing campaign, warning that the measure would “outlaw basic health and safety protections for women, eliminate parental notification and consent laws that protect minor girls, and allow painful abortions up until birth in our state.” PWO also launched a $3 million campaign in support of Issue 1.
“Ohioans are waking up to the dangers of the ACLU’s anti-parent amendment, and they are terrified – and rightfully so,” PWO Press Secretary Amy Natoce said in a statement. She continued:
The extreme amendment places parental rights on the chopping block by permitting minors to undergo abortions and sex change procedures without their parents’ knowledge or consent, removes health and safety protections for women, and allows painful abortion up until birth. PWO will continue to shine a light on the ACLU’s disastrous agenda until it is defeated in November.
Currently, abortion is legal in Ohio up to 20 weeks gestation because a judge blocked a heartbeat law that would have protected unborn babies at around six weeks into pregnancy.
RELATED: Pro-Lifers Pop 1,350 Balloons in Protest — One for Every Abortion in the U.S. Every Day
Matt Perdie / Breitbart NewsKatherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.
No comments:
Post a Comment