Suit challenges law forcing pro-abortion speech
Illinois passed a law that requires the staff of pro-life centers to tell their clients that abortion is an alternative to saving their babies. In addition, the law stipulates that the staff must provide information about the abortion-provider with the cheapest price.
Conversely, abortion clinics are not required to refer abortion-minded women to pro-life centers to keep their babies or to consider adoption.
Practically speaking, the requirements force the pregnancy centers to act in a manner that is contrary to the pro-life mission and, in essence, to act as a referral. As a result, Thomas More Society attorney Thomas Olp has filed suit on behalf of 18 pro-life centers.
“It’s unconstitutional,” says Olp. “It’s compelled speech, and it’s viewpoint discrimination. It’s a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”
The attorney contends that the Ohio law is another step the Left is taking to convince people that abortion isn’t a moral decision.
“Anybody with a conscience realizes that abortion is inherently a moral issue,” Olp tells OneNewsNow, “and it’s an immoral act, and that’ll never go away. So it’s just another failed ploy by the pro-abortion industry to take what is morally unacceptable [and make it] acceptable…”
Thomas More Society is convinced that it will prevail. Similar ordinances in Baltimore, Maryland, and Austin, Texas, were overturned in the court system. One passed last year in California but has been challenged in court.
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