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SPRINGFIELD — A federal judge in Rockford has temporarily blocked the enforcement of a new law that allows the Illinois attorney general’s office to penalize anti-abortion pregnancy centers if they use deception to interfere with patients seeking the procedure.
In his written order issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Iain Johnston called the law “both stupid and very likely unconstitutional,” and said it represented “a blatant example” of the government deciding “whose speech is sanctionable and whose speech is immunized.”
The law “is likely classic content and viewpoint discrimination prohibited by the First Amendment,” Johnston wrote.
The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the conservative Chicago nonprofit law firm the Thomas More Society that contended the measure, signed into law last week by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, violates the First Amendment right to free speech.
By issuing the preliminary injunction, Johnston, appointed to his post by former Republican President Donald Trump, temporarily halted the law from taking effect until the courts make a final determination on its merits.
”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,” Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation for the Thomas More Society and a former Republican state representative, said in a statement issued Thursday night.
The head of another organization that’s a plaintiff in the lawsuit praised the ruling as “a victory for the women of Illinois, who are being pushed” by the governor and the Democrat-led legislature “into abortions they often desperately do not want.”
“This injunction restores real choice to women facing untimely pregnancy in Illinois — and a chance at life for their unborn children,” Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, said in a statement.
Pritzker on Friday said he hopes “the federal courts will recognize ... that you can’t lie to misinform people” and steer them away from getting an abortion.
“These organizations are allowed to communicate to people who are on their way, but they’re not allowed to deceive them, according to this law,” Pritzker said in Schaumburg, where he signed bills aimed at protecting Native American remains and mandating Native American history instruction in the state’s schools.
Noting the temporary nature of Thursday’s ruling, the governor said he would wait for a final decision from the courts before determining whether the law needs to be clarified.
Jennifer Welch, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Illinois, said in a statement that she was “frustrated that a federal judge temporarily halted a new law targeting organizations actively working to deceive people trying to access health care.”
“For decades, crisis pregnancy centers have targeted our patients using deceptive and false practices,” Welch said. “Often crisis pregnancy centers provide misleading and medically inaccurate information, sometimes deliberately misdiagnosing patients or misdating their pregnancies so people think they have more time to decide about abortion or that they are past the time when they can have an abortion.”
Clinics under the law are subject to injunctive action and a financial penalty of up to $50,000 under the state’s Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act if they are found to be dissuading “pregnant persons from considering abortion care through deceptive, fraudulent, and misleading information and practices.”
Raoul said in a statement last week that these clinics go to great lengths to deceive people seeking abortion care. When Pritzker signed the bill into law last week, he said that “Women need access to comprehensive, fact-based health care when making critical decision(s) about their own health — not manipulation or misinformation from politically motivated, nonmedical actors.”
During testimony over the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued the potential fines that could be levied under the law “would have a chilling effect on their speech,” Johnston wrote.
“The witness for Plaintiff Pro Life Action League described how the group had stopped the production and distribution of a pamphlet as a direct result of (the law),” the judge noted. “A more unambiguous chilling and self-censorship of protected speech there cannot be.”
Johnston noted how at least one of the anti-abortion centers didn’t know how it could operate in light of the new law, which he wrote prompted at least one center to cancel its so-called “sidewalk counseling.” Johnston also noted how attendance plummeted for at least one center’s prayer vigils.
The judge also questioned whether sidewalk counselors are deceptive, saying their “obvious goal” is to convince people to not get an abortion.
”Nobody is confused as to who sidewalk counselors are or what their goal is,” said Johnston. “Indeed, a sidewalk counselor wears a pro-life shirt and sometimes has a depiction of the Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus with his arms outstretched.”
Illinois lawmakers passed the measure this spring as part of their efforts to shore up abortion rights throughout the state following the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade, which for 50 years granted abortion access nationwide with limited exceptions. Since that ruling, many Midwestern states have restricted abortion access while Illinois has maintained strong reproductive rights protections.
Abortion providers have predicted that 20,000 to 30,000 additional patients will be crossing state lines each year to terminate a pregnancy in Illinois, up two to three times the number of patients before Roe was overturned.
The deceptive practices measure on abortion is the latest law championed by Pritzker and passed by his Democratic allies in the Illinois General Assembly to be challenged on constitutional grounds.
A measure to eliminate cash bail as a means of pretrial release in criminal cases was blocked by a Kankakee County judge late last year, but that ruling was reversed last month by the Illinois Supreme Court. The state’s ban on certain high-powered guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines was temporarily blocked on the state and federal levels, with those challenges now being considered by the state Supreme Court and a federal appellate court.
Earlier this week, Pritzker attributed the legal challenges to his agenda as a last resort tactic by conservative Republicans in a blue state.
“What the right wing in Illinois has decided is they can’t win at the ballot box, they can’t win in the legislature, they didn’t win the governorship, they didn’t win the races around the state that they were trying to take in school boards and library boards and so on, and so they have only one thing that they have resorted to and that’s take every one of these pieces of legislation and try to take it to court and get a decision they like,” Pritzker said at news conference on Monday announcing a series of initiatives to help people seeking an abortion in Illinois.
Chicago Tribune’s Angie Leventis Lourgos and Dan Petrella contributed.