ROCKFORD, Ill. – Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Elissa Graves will be available for media interviews Friday following a state court hearing in a lawsuit filed by an Illinois doctor and two pregnancy care centers against Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner. In December of last year, the medical providers won a temporary injunction against a new law, SB 1564, that forces them to make or arrange abortion referrals, and now they are asking the court to deny the governor’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
“Government officials shouldn’t be allowed to force doctors and medical staff to provide free advertising for the abortion industry,” said Graves. “Requiring them to provide patients with lists of abortionists, among other things, violates the legally protected freedoms of our clients, who, as the court found in December, ‘have raised a fair question as to whether their right to be free from government compelled speech has been violated by SB 1564.’ Women shouldn’t lose access to doctors and health staff who unconditionally value human life, and pregnancy care centers offering free help and hope to pregnant women shouldn’t be converted into referral agencies for abortionists.”
SB 1564 compels speech and action in violation of the oaths of health professionals. Specifically…
- Pro-life doctors and pregnancy centers must tell pregnant women the names of doctors they believe offer abortions.
- They must tell pregnant women that abortion has unspecified “benefits.”
- They must tell women that abortion is a “treatment option” for pregnancy.
Mauck & Baker, LLC, attorney Noel Sterett, one of nearly 3,200 private attorneys allied with ADF, is co-counsel on behalf of the health professionals challenging the Illinois law.
- Pronunciation guide: Sterett (STAIR’-ett)