Trump-appointed judge temporarily blocks New York from targeting abortion ‘reversal’ treatment

(CN) — A federal judge on Thursday handed down a scathing ruling against New York Attorney General Letitia James, temporarily barring her from going after a group of anti-abortion pregnancy centers touting “abortion pill reversal."

James sued anti-abortion group Heartbeat International and 11 of those pregnancy centers in May, accusing them of fraud, deceptive business practices and false advertising by touting abortion pill reversal, a treatment that major medical groups say is unproven and potentially dangerous. In theory, after a pregnant person takes the first of two pills in medication abortion, the procedure will reverse its effects with the hormone progesterone to save the pregnancy.

Weeks after James’ suit hit the docket, anti-abortion group National Institute of Family and Life Advocates — along with two anti-abortion pregnancy centers — sued her back, claiming the attorney general was trampling on their First Amendment right to free speech by threatening punishment for touting the treatment.

U.S. District Judge John Sinatra, a Trump-appointed federal judge in New York’s Western District, agreed.

“The First Amendment protects plaintiffs’ right to speak freely about APR protocol and, more specifically, to say that it is safe and effective for a pregnant woman to use in consultation with her doctor,” Sinatra wrote in a 36-page decision filed Thursday.

Sinatra granted a preliminary injunction against James that bars her from targeting the pregnancy centers for promoting the treatment, effectively nixing her original lawsuit if the ruling stands. The attorney general’s office hasn’t indicated whether it would appeal. If it does, the injunction will likely be stayed.

In his ruling, Sinatra lambasted the attorney general for jumping too quickly to regulate speech.

“If ‘the First Amendment means anything, it means that regulating speech must be a last — not first — resort,’” Sinatra wrote. “Yet ‘here it seems to have been the first strategy the government thought to try.’”

Leaning on the fact the treatment requires a doctor’s prescription, Sinatra ruled that the groups’ touting of the practice couldn’t alone cause enough harm to warrant limiting speech.

“Even assuming that progesterone treatment presents a risk of harm to a pregnant woman, the treatment can only be obtained through a prescription from a doctor,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiffs’ speech, therefore, would — at most — encourage a woman to speak with her doctor about treatment options. The state fails to explain why forbidding speech about APR ‘ was a necessary as opposed to a merely convenient means of achieving its interests.”

Additionally, Sinatra disagreed with the state’s assessment that the plaintiffs’ speech was commercial in nature.

“Nothing could be fundamentally less commercial than this speech about how a woman might save her pregnancy,” he wrote.

According to Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian legal advocacy group representing the plaintiffs in this action, Sinatra’s ruling means that the plaintiffs will “now be able to inform women who have taken the first abortion drug that the possibility exists to counteract the drug’s lethal effects, and the attorney general is prohibited from censoring them for providing that information.”

In a statement to Courthouse News, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates said it was “extremely happy” with the decision.

“We’re thankful that we are now free to make public statements about the availability of APR (abortion pill reversal) to women who have begun a chemical abortion and are seeking ways to save their unborn child’s life,” it said.

James had sought to stop the centers from continuing to promote the “unproven” procedure through its “misleading” marketing materials, which she claimed overstated the treatment’s success and  failed to address its potential risks.

“Abortions cannot be reversed, and any advertising that suggests otherwise is false and misleading,” a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said in a statement to Courthouse News. “Attorney General James is committed to defending New Yorkers’ right to make informed decisions about their health free from deceptive practices that could put them at risk. This decision is disappointing and we are considering our legal options.”

James and Sinatra have a history. Last month, the attorney general tried to get the judge thrown off another case against her — a suit challenging New York’s ban on body armor. Her effort was unsuccessful.

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