A coalition of pro-life pregnancy help organizations this week sued New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, in state court over her efforts to prevent them from promoting abortion pill reversal procedures.
The state claims the groups, that help pregnant women, misinform the public about the abortion pill reversal protocol used when women who have begun the medication abortion process change their minds. The groups say the protocol has been proven safe and one of their lawyers described the crackdown on their free speech as a “political witch-hunt.” The state counters that the protocol is not universally accepted and has not been approved by federal regulators.
Pregnancy help organizations, or PHOs, are pro-life nonprofit organizations that provide a range of services to women and men facing unintended pregnancies, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Support services include pregnancy testing, parental education, sexual risk avoidance education, and housing assistance. Some PHOs operate pregnancy help centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies, and social services agencies aiding individuals facing an unintended pregnancy.
The dispute centers around information the groups have been disseminating to those who decide midway through the multi-day medication abortion process to discontinue it.
Medication abortions are reportedly lawful in 36 states and the District of Columbia.
A medication abortion generally involves the use of mifepristone, which blocks progesterone, a hormone, and misoprostol, which induces contractions. Misoprostol is widely available because it has many medical uses, apart from medication abortions. Mifepristone is also known as mifeprex and RU-486.
The abortion pill reversal protocol can only take place fewer than 24 hours after mifepristone has been taken orally. It is not effective after the misoprostol has been taken. Following the protocol, a large dose of progesterone is administered to the pregnant woman, which counteracts the mifepristone that would otherwise prevent the progesterone from being absorbed by the womb and causing contractions.
On April 22, Ms. James filed a notice of intention to sue the organizations over “persistent misleading statements and omissions in the advertising of the Abortion Pill Reversal … protocol, including, but not limited to statements and omissions relating to the safety and efficacy of the APR protocol.”
Ms. James said she “intends to seek injunctive relief, restitution, damages, civil penalties, [and] auditing and compliance review[.]”
The New York action resembles a lawsuit California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, previously filed against Heartbeat International and RealOptions Obria, asserting the pro-life groups “used fraudulent and misleading claims to advertise an unproven and largely experimental procedure called ‘abortion pill reversal (APR).’”
However, on April 30, attorneys from the Thomas More Society representing the pregnancy help organizations filed a legal complaint in the Supreme Court of New York against Ms. James, claiming her threatened prosecution of the organizations violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, the New York Constitution, and state civil rights law. The lawsuit is Heartbeat International v. James.
Attorney Peter Breen, executive vice president at the Thomas More Society, a public interest law firm, said Ms. James’s actions constitute “a political witch-hunt against small nonprofits that have selflessly served New York’s pregnant women and their children for over 50 years.”
“Letitia James should be heralding these charities, not launching outrageously false claims against them under laws that don’t apply to their noncommercial speech. For decades, doctors have been prescribing supplemental progesterone for pregnant women at serious risk for miscarriage, but because this safe and long-established practice may actually reverse abortions, ideologues like Letitia James now want to squelch it.”
The attorney general’s notice of intention to sue is “a transparent attempt to harass small pro-life charities into silence, targeting her political opponents because of their beliefs, in flagrant violation of the First Amendment,” he said.
Ms. James was served with the court papers on May 1, Mr. Breen told The Epoch Times.
Ms. James “appears to be targeting these pro-life pregnancy help organizations because of her own support for the abortion industry and her antipathy for pro-life,” he said. “This is viewpoint-based targeting that she is using in going after our centers.”
The protocol has a “decent rate of success,” Mr. Breen said.
Physicians who have been using the protocol report that in up to 70 percent of situations they have been able to counteract the effects of mifepristone by using supplemental progesterone, he said.
Mr. Breen said his clients are facing fines of $5,000 per violation. “So every time our clients have taken a call from someone who inquired about abortion pill reversal, every time someone clicks on their website, could be construed as a violation,” and these fines “could very well bankrupt all of our clients if [the attorney general] is allowed to succeed,” he said.
“Attorney General James has proven over and over again that she is hostile to the pro-life viewpoint, and that hostility absolutely is political persecution,” he added.
The Epoch Times reached out to Ms. James’s office but had not received a reply by publication time.
The lawsuit comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is deliberating a case about mifepristone known as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
During oral arguments on March 26, the justices seemed skeptical of a challenge brought by a doctors’ group against the FDA’s loosening of regulations on the use of mifepristone. Several justices seemed to question whether the group had a right to bring the challenge, known in legal parlance as standing, a key argument in the government’s case. A lower court judge found the FDA was under political pressure to get the pill on the market and improperly lifted restrictions related to accessing the drug.
Advocates for mifepristone say the current system by which the drug is provided is safe, while opponents say it puts women at risk by ignoring safety measures that used to be in place.
The nation’s highest court is expected to rule on the case by the end of June, though it could release a ruling at any time. The court announced it expects to issue opinions in argued cases on May 9, but did not indicate which opinions would be released.
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared May 3, 2024, in The Epoch Times. It was updated May 4, 2024.
Photo: New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat