Fri Aug 4, 2023 – 12:40 pm EDT
ROCKFORD, Illinois (LifeSiteNews) – In a victory for freedom of speech and alternatives to abortion, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Thursday against an Illinois law classifying pro-life pregnancy resource centers as “unfair methods” of assisting expectant mothers.
Passed in May and signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker on July 27, Illinois’s SB 1909 amends the state’s Consumer Fraud & Deceptive Business Practices Act to include any organization that primarily offers pregnancy-related services but “does not directly provide abortions or provide or prescribe emergency contraception, and has no affiliation with any organization or provider who provides abortions or provides or prescribes emergency contraception.”
The new law prohibits pro-life pregnancy centers from participating in “unfair methods of competition or unfair or deceptive acts or practices, including the use or employment of any deception, fraud, false pretense, false promise, or misrepresentation, or the concealment, suppression, or omission of any material fact” with the intention of offering life-affirming alternatives to abortion and discouraging abortion. Forbidden pro-life work includes “advertising, soliciting, or otherwise offering pregnancy-related services.”
Pro-lifers warned that the law would be interpreted as specifically targeting pro-life centers for offering alternatives
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