Judge dresses down Pritzker in unusually strong language for a law he signed to cripple pro-life crisis pregnancy centers. "It's stupid."

Just one more liberal attack on free speech.

Maternity homes are provided by Aid for Women, a Chicago emergency pregnancy clinic.

A federal judge calling a law “stupid” is quite rare. Actually I’ve never heard of it. The judge must have been pretty angry to dress down Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Atty. Gen. Kwame Raoul and the legislative geniuses (Democrats all) who created this stupid and possibly unconstitutional law,

But that’s what U.S. District Judge Iaian Johnston did when he granted a preliminary injunction, the day after the governor signed the legislation known as Senate Bill 1909. It’s obvious purpose is to silence centers from explaining alternatives to abortion. Vaguely defined “misinformation” and spreading it in Illinois now is a crime, don’t you know.

It’s not altogether clear what misinformation is and who gets to define it. What’ clear is that the law is an outrageous attempt to silence religious and political speech not to the liking of Pritzker, Illinois Atty. Gen. Kwame Raoul and state lawmakers of the Democratic persuasion. I used to be a Democrat because they were the first-line of defense of free speech, like the American Civil Liberties Union, of which I was a member. What kind of illness accounts for their conversion into staging witch hunts like those conducted by the commie-fighter, bonehead like the late Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy?

The details of the new law are mind-bending, unlike anything I’ve seen. As the Cook County Record said:

Throughout the order, Johnston minced few words in castigating Raoul for not only championing, but attempting to defend a law that Johnston noted Raoul's own deputies have conceded is unnecessary to achieve its stated goal, but essentially appears to serve no other purpose than to target people who speak out against abortion in Illinois.

Again, the Cook County Record:

The law] would empower the attorney general’s office [to] use Illinois’ consumer fraud law to investigate crisis pregnancy centers for “misinformation” related to abortion and human reproduction, and then potentially penalize those pregnancy centers with fines or closure orders.

Here’s the kicker, something so obviously unconstitutional that only those blinded by their own bigotry, ignorance and unbending arrogance could fail to understand:

The law is targeted at only prolife crisis pregnancy centers, while specifically excluding abortion providers to the same strictures. It also excludes all licensed medical professionals from crack-downs from the misinformation police.

The Record notes that law also appears to exempt abortion providers from being investigated for "misinformation." indicating the law was only intended to be applied against abortion opponents.

So, who does that leave? Only the pro-life centers. I’m no lawyer but doesn’t that sound like a “bill of attainer”? That means a law directed at a single person or a group of people while excepting everyone else of the same class. Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 of the Constitution specifically forbids using a law as a targeted missile.

Senate Bill 1909 and its backers fail to recognize that these pro-life centers provide a wide variety of supported services for women who elect not to have an abortion. Aid for Women in Chicago, for example, operates two maternity homes, Heather’s House and Monica’s House, for expectant moms, new moms and their children. What makes pro-life clinics different from, say, a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, is the former doesn’t recommend or encourage abortion. And that, in the minds of radical abortion advocates, is “misinformation” that merits a you-shut-up law.

Makes me wonder: Why shouldn’t a clinic that advocates holistic medicine be charged with a crime if it opposes surgery? In the minds of some, that’s misinformation.

Thanks for getting the injunction and attention this issue goes the Thomas More Society, a non-profit, public interest law firm “championing Life, Family, and Freedom.” Peter Breen, the group’s executive vice president and litigation head, said the temporary injunction “sends a strong, clear message to the country that the First Amendment protects pro-life speech.”

The lawsuit is the National Institute of Family Life Advocates et al. v. Raoul is linked here.

The suit’s introduction puts the issue starkly:

Just as it is core to our Constitution that government may not establish religion, thereby coercing citizens to believe what is allegedly “orthodox” in matters of faith, it no less core to our Constitution, and our American way of life, that government may not prescribe political, moral, or even scientific orthodoxies from which no one is permitted to depart; or worse, that certain disfavored citizens are required to speak, no matter how vehemently they disagree. As the Supreme Court recently put it: “Whenever . . . a State prevents individuals from saying what they think on important matters or compels them to voice ideas with which they disagree, it under-mines” the ends of the First Amendment in preserving “our democratic form of government” and “further[ing] the search for truth.” Janus v. Am. Fed’n of State Cnty., & Mun. Emps., Council 31,

Here’s Amendment 1909