Illinois lawmakers cannot force pro-life doctors and abortion opponents operating so-called crisis pregnancy centers to tell women about the “benefits” of abortion, as a condition of keeping their protections against certain kinds of lawsuits, a federal judge has ruled.
On April 4, U.S. District Judge Iain Johnston struck down as unconstitutional recently enacted Illinois legislation which altered the state’s Health Care Right of Conscience Act.
In the ruling, Johnston said the unconstitutional portion of the amended law violates the First Amendment speech rights of anti-abortion doctors and crisis pregnancy center operators by forcing them to pass along a state-approved pro-abortion message with which they personally or professionally disagree, or which they believe to be “morally abhorrent.”
The ruling finally declaring the law unconstitutional comes eight years after a different federal judge had slapped an injunction on the state, blocking Illinois from enforcing the law while the constitutional challenges to the measure played out in court.
The law was first passed in 2016 by the Democrats who have dominated the General Assembly then and since. It was signed into law by former Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, over the strenuous objections of other Republicans and pro-life advocates.
The law specifically placed new requirements on doctors and other pro-life medical care providers to obtain a so-called “liability shield” offered under the Health Care Right of Conscience Act.
