(LifeSiteNews) — Pro-lifers in the state of New York can continue to spread the truth about abortion pill reversal thanks to a U.S. Appeals Court ruling Monday.
Earlier this week a three-judge panel upheld a U.S. District Court judge’s previous decision to grant a preliminary injunction against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who had been seeking to prevent crisis pregnancy centers across the state from promoting progesterone as a way to reverse the effects of chemical abortions.
James had brought a suit against nearly a dozen pregnancy centers last year, arguing they were violating consumer protection laws by “misleading” women about the efficacy of abortion pill reversal treatment.
“Women in New York have literally saved their babies from an in-progress chemical drug abortion because they had access to information through their local pregnancy centers about using safe and effective progesterone for abortion pill reversal,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Caleb Dalton said previously.
The Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit against James arguing that her “threats, prosecution, and intimidation of pregnancy help organizations, violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.” Lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) also filed a case.
James appealed the injunction but saw her case shot down with this week’s ruling, which upheld the decision on free speech grounds.
“The preliminary injunction serves to secure the First Amendment rights of the … plaintiffs by allowing them to make religiously and morally motivated statements,” this week’s ruling says, according to Reuters.
James has engaged in a litany of other methods to attack the unborn during her time in office. In 2024, she tried but failed to move litigation involving pregnancy help organizations to Manhattan from upstate New York. In 2023, she filed an injunction against pro-life activists who engage in Red Rose Rescues at abortion clinics.
“Letitia James seeks to prevent pro-lifers from reaching out to women with love, compassion, understanding, and practical material help,” Dr. Monica Miller told LifeSiteNews at the time.
While pro-lifers held out hope that the Trump administration would ban chemical abortion pill mifepristone, the FDA announced in October that a generic version had been approved. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. previously told congressional hearings that he was studying the “safety” of the pill, giving pro-lifers hope that he would ban it outright.
“FDA had promised to do a top-to-bottom safety review of the chemical abortion drug, but instead they’ve just greenlighted new versions of it for distribution,” said U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). “I have lost confidence in the leadership at FDA.”
In October, 20 Democrat state attorneys general declared that they would vow to ensure access to chemical abortion pills. That same month a mother in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia nearly died after she started bleeding out from complications arising from the abortion pill.
During a chemical abortion, the first pill, mifepristone, attempts to starve the child developing in utero by blocking the pregnancy hormone progesterone. However, after taking the first pill, a woman can still change her mind. She can undergo emergency procedures to reverse the effects of the first pill. Provided she has not taken the second pill, her baby can often be saved through this process, which is known as abortion pill reversal. The second drug of a chemical abortion is misoprostol, which is ingested 24-48 hours later, usually at home. Misoprostol causes the uterus to contract, expelling the baby. This can result in cramping, bleeding, and often requires medical attention.
On November 24, Howard County, Texas, became the 14th county in the United States to ban abortion. The approved ordinance specifically prohibits the mailing of chemical abortion pills and the aiding and abetting of persons seeking to abort their preborn children. It restricts other “abortion-trafficking” activities as well, such as the disposing of remains of aborted children.
Texas is one of 12 states that bans all or most abortions, though the abortion lobby continues to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills and legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel.
