Assembly panel advances three abortion bills over vehement opposition from critics

Yahoo

20-03-2025

Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter (D-Passaic), chair of the Assembly's community development and women's affairs committee, listens to people testify on March 20, 2025, against several abortion-related bills. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
Anti-abortion pregnancy centers that use deceptive or misleading advertising to lure pregnant women through their doors would face penalties for violating the state's Consumer Fraud Act under a bill an Assembly panel advanced Thursday despite heated opposition from anti-abortion advocates.
The bill also would require violators to issue a statement correcting false or misleading information and authorize the state attorney general to seek a court order prohibiting violators from advertising or providing counseling services.
It comes 16 months after the Office of the Attorney General issued a consumer alert warning residents about deceptive advertising by crisis pregnancy centers, which are typically religiously affiliated centers that offer pregnant women testing, ultrasounds, counseling, and information that discourages abortion. There are more than 50 such centers around the state, with at least one in every county.
It was one of three abortion-related bills the Assembly Community Development and Women's Affairs Committee advanced along party lines Thursday. The other two bills would:
Establish a reproductive health travel advisory that would inform New Jersey residents about abortion restrictions in other states. This bill passed the full Senate in October by a 25-14 vote, largely along party lines.
Protect people who get or give abortions in other states by entering New Jersey in the Women's Reproductive Health Care Compact. Under that compact, member states would block the extradition or investigation of people who get or provide abortions by states that restrict the procedure, among other things. This bill does not yet have a Senate companion.
The measures come as the Trump administration has pardoned abortion protesters convicted of federal crimes, banned federal funds for abortion, and rolled back support of the abortion pill. Forty-one states now ban or restrict abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Thursday, Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter (D-Passaic), the committee's chair, lamented this 'time of uncertainty' for women's rights. She told listeners — mostly anti-abortion advocates — that the bills would ensure women have the freedom to make informed decisions about their reproductive health.
'The issues before us today are not just policy matters,' Sumter said. 'They are matters of justice, dignity, and the well-being of families and communities across our state.'
The activists who packed the hearing room, though, decried the bills as discriminatory against religious groups.
'This is nothing more than a campaign of hostility toward faith-based, pro-life pregnancy centers, and it has resulted in actions that are unconstitutional, groundless, unduly burdensome, and purposefully harassing,' said Shawn Hyland of the New Jersey Family Policy Center.
Opponents of the bill targeting anti-abortion pregnancy centers said the centers should not be subject to the state's Consumer Fraud Act because that 1960 law was passed to police commercial speech.
'No precedent exists for applying the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act to the offering of free charitable services to members of the community who voluntarily accept them,' said Eileen S. Den Bleyker, an attorney who sued the state in 2023 over the consumer alert.
Den Bleyker's group lost that challenge at the appellate level, but a separate action over public records remains ongoing.
Critics also warned legislators the bill violates free speech protections and would be struck down as unconstitutional, citing a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case that challenged a California law. That case targeted a law that required licensed anti-abortion pregnancy clinics to alert patients that the state provides free or subsidized abortions and mandated that unlicensed clinics advertise their non-medical status. But the justices agreed with the anti-abortion pregnancy centers that the First Amendment prohibits compelled speech.
The New Jersey bill awaits a hearing before the Senate's commerce committee.
Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R-Sussex) and Assemblyman Al Barlas (R-Passaic) voted against all three bills.
'We should not be weaponizing government against those who provide women with a choice, the choice to be supported, the choice to receive care, and the choice of life,' Fantasia said.
On all three bills, several speakers veered into religious preaching, driving Sumter to repeatedly try to redirect their comments back to the legislation under consideration.
But anti-abortion lobbyist Barbara Eames ignored Sumter as she testified about slavery, Benjamin Franklin, Babylon, the Book of Psalms, North Korea, and China before ending with a warning.
'I am quite sure that this committee will approve these bills today, and they will likely pass the Legislature and be signed into law by Governor Murphy. But God executes justice in his own time and will call us all to account for our actions taken in our earthly life. These bills violate his law and his will,' Eames said.
No abortion rights advocates testified during Thursday's hearing, although several did testify in support of several bills to protect abortion access in October.
Sumter appeared unruffled after the 90-minute hearing, saying: 'What I love about our state is we protect reproductive freedoms, whatever your choice may be.'
'Chaos' on the federal level makes home rule matter more for state policymakers, she added.
'It's a form of leadership that doesn't serve the public well,' she said of the Trump administration. 'Anxiety is high. There's pressure down on the state level to make sure that we provide some leadership, calmness, and stability on what rights you have in your state.'
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