With lawsuits brought against crisis pregnancy centers in New York by state Attorney General Letitia James earlier this year over false advertisement claims, one local center is fighting back on the federal level.
Summit Life Outreach Center, which has operated on Pine Avenue in Niagara Falls since 2005, is one of the plaintiffs in a federal injunction suit against James and her office. The suit claims that James is suppressing the organization’s freedom of speech by stopping it from discussing an abortion pill reversal procedure.
The suit was filed on Aug. 7, the other plaintiff in the case is the Bronx-based Evergreen Association. The centers are represented by the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, a conservative law firm involved in other anti-abortion lawsuits across the country.
The first hearing was held in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in Buffalo Thursday morning before Judge John l. Sinatra.
The state had sued Heartbeat International and 11 crisis pregnancy centers in state Supreme Court this past May, arguing they make false or misleading advertisements regarding the abortion pill reversal. The AG office said that abortion cannot be reversed and there is a lack of scientific evidence to support the procedure’s safety and effectiveness. Thomas More Society is also representing those clients being sued and in response to James, Peter Breen, Thomas More Society’s executive vice president, claims the treatment recommendations presented are based on case studies.
“We don’t give it to them,” said Summit Life Executive Director Barbara Bidak about the abortion pill reversal treatment, “We have the information on how to obtain it.”
The information on the center’s website leads to an abortion pill reversal hotline. The suit claims that because of the state’s suit against crisis pregnancy centers, Summit, “fears James might also target it with a meritless suit if Summit shares scientific evidence about APR.”
Other services advertised by the center are free, including pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, peer counseling, adoption referrals, and parental training. The suit also states that Summit receives roughly $100,000 a year in total revenue from donations, fundraisers, and investment income.
The standard medical abortion process involves taking two drugs, mifepristone and misopronstol, to carry it out rather than through surgery.
Anti-abortion activists claim that prescribing progesterone, a naturally-produced hormone that increases during a woman’s pregnancy, after taking the first dose of abortion drugs can save the pregnancy.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, whom James cited in her initial lawsuit, has stated such abortion reversal procedures are unproven and unethical, with one 2020 study evaluating this in an Institutional Review Board-approved environment having to end early due to safety concerns among the participants. It also states crisis pregnancy centers use misleading practices to dissuade women from getting an abortion.
Caleb Dalton, a senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Life who was present at Thursday’s hearing, said the judge would be working on a decision in the coming weeks.
“What’s at issue is the ability of the centers to even put that information on their website, to tell women that this could be an option,” Dalton said.
The attorneys are looking to consolidate this case into another federal case involving the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, another organization that supports the centers.
The attorney general’s office has appealed a ruling from state Supreme Court Judge Sam Valleriani ordering the case to be heard in Rochester rather than Manhattan.
The Attorney General’s office did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.