A Niagara Falls crisis pregnancy center is among the latest to receive an injunction in a case against state Attorney General Letitia James.
John Sinatra, a United States District Judge for the Western District of New York and a Donald Trump appointee, granted the injunction to Pine Avenue’s Summit Life Outreach Center and the New York City-based Evergreen Association. It allows them to continue advertising an abortion pill reversal procedure while further hearings are pending.
“We’re incredibly pleased a federal judge has now made clear that Attorney General Letitia James’ legal attacks on our state’s pro-life ministries unconstitutionally chills our First Amendment right to share the lifesaving message of abortion pill reserve,” said Summit Life Executive Director Barbara Bidak in a statement.
The two were represented by the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based conservative law firm with a history of representing clients in anti-abortion cases. They filed the lawsuit at the district court in Buffalo this past August.
Sinatra had previously granted an injunction to the anti-abortion group National Institute of Family and Life Advocates last month. They are represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, another conservative legal group involved with anti-abortion advocacy.
A spokesperson from AG James’ office said they filed a motion to stay the proceedings in the Summit case as they appeal the NIFLA case. The two cases are also being consolidated under Sinatra, although because the injunctions were filed before that, they are proceeding independently.
The standard medical abortion process involves taking two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. Anti-abortion activists claim that taking progesterone, a naturally produced hormone that increases during pregnancy after the first dose of mifepristone can save a pregnancy.
James had sued Heartbeat International and 11 crisis pregnancy centers in state Supreme Court this past May, arguing they made false and misleading statements regarding this procedure. Her office stated that abortion cannot be reversed and there is a lack of scientific evidence supporting this procedure’s safety and effectiveness.
Summit Life and The Evergreen Association were not named in James’ initial lawsuit.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, whom James cited in her initial lawsuit, has stated that such abortion reversal procedures are unproven and unethical and that crisis pregnancy centers use misleading practices to dissuade women from getting an abortion.