ACLJ Files Amicus Brief Supporting Pregnancy Resource Centers and Their Right To Talk About Abortion

“Women often are unsure or ambivalent about abortion and sometimes regret or change their minds after taking the first abortion drug.” This statement, from the ACLJ’s latest amicus brief, is both true and concerning. Women who pursue or initiate abortion, either by chemical or surgical means, can be deeply conflicted over whether they are making the right choice. That means many women who get abortions actually either do not want them or may deeply regret them afterward.

Pregnancy Resource Centers (PRCs) play a crucial role in assisting pregnant women in need by exploring their options without a bias toward completing an abortion sale. However, every woman who forgoes abortion and chooses life represents one less customer for the abortion industry – which makes them a target for Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses.

As we noted previously:

PRCs are local, non-profit organizations that provide invaluable aid to people facing difficult decisions concerning a pregnancy. They offer, free of charge, a variety of educational, medical, and material resources and assistance to millions of women and their babies annually. These centers are on the frontline of the fight for life, and the abortion industry cannot stand the work that they do; indeed, radical abortionists have gone to great lengths to discredit, burden, and shut them down.

Consequently, we have been busy making legal filings in defense of PRCs in cases across the country, including in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and now California.

In the California case, NIFLA v. Bonta, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) sued in response to threats from California Attorney General Rob Bonta against PRCs. Bonta took the position that the state’s business fraud statutes forbid a PRC from presenting “abortion pill reversal” (APR) as an option to women who, having started the chemical abortion process, want to stop it. In short, California wants to censor and silence how PRCs are even allowed to talk about backing out of chemical abortions – all to protect the abortion industry’s profits and shut the door on lifesaving alternatives.

NIFLA requested a preliminary injunction stopping AG  Bonta from using those laws against their speech about APR. When the federal district court denied that request, NIFLA appealed to the Ninth Circuit. We just filed a brief in support of that appeal on behalf of the ACLJ, as well as the Charlotte Lozier Institute and the Pennsylvania Pregnancy Wellness Collaborative.

Our amicus brief points to the wonderful, generous, and caring service that PRCs extend to pregnant women in need. We also home in on the offer of APR as a lifeline for those women who have started the chemical abortion process. As we explain:

Drug-induced abortion is a two-drug regimen. . . . The first drug a woman takes is mifepristone. Mifepristone inhibits progesterone by binding to progesterone receptors in the ovaries, uterus, and the placenta. . . . Progesterone is a naturally occurring hormone in a woman’s body that helps facilitate a healthy pregnancy.

In other words, the first “abortion pill” drug, mifepristone, blocks the natural hormone (progesterone) needed to maintain pregnancy. APR seeks to counter that chemical obstruction by flooding the woman’s body with “bioidentical progesterone” to out-compete the mifepristone.

This basic principle of overcrowding progesterone receptors with progesterone to counteract mifepristone is analogously exemplified in the treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning (i.e., by flooding the patient with 100% oxygen to out-compete the CO) and opioid overdose (i.e., by dosing the patient with opioid receptor antagonists to out-compete the opioid). . . . [T]he APR protocol simply involves the administration of high-dose progesterone . . . .

But does it work? Not always – no cure is 100% – but the evidence suggests that APR significantly enhances the chances of saving the baby.

Researchers . . . found that outcomes using the APR protocol go well beyond the usual failure rate for mifepristone – i.e., APR significantly increases the chance for a successful pregnancy.

But would a woman really want to back out of an abortion she has already started? Certainly! As we explain in our brief:

[W]omen are often pressured into having an abortion, . . . which negates the full willingness of their choice to have one in the first place. . . . Meanwhile, some women are tricked into taking mifepristone when they do not want it. E.g., Kate Sheridan, A Man Is Accused of Lacing His Girlfriend’s Tea With an Abortion Pill. How Did He Get It?, Newsweek(Dec. 15, 2017), https://tinyurl.com/vx36624p; Man accused of killing fetus with “abortion pancake”, CBS News (July 14, 2014), https://tinyurl.com/5n8nhzwh. Women who were deceived into consuming mifepristone, if they discover it in time, likewise would have a strong interest in seeking out a means of reversing the process.

PRCs offer hope and help to women in need. Efforts to shut them down are despicable. Here at the ACLJ, we are privileged to give our support to PRCs in their fight to continue their mission. For more on our work to defend PRCs, go here.