New Jersey Democrats’ Bill Would Punish Pro-Lifers For Causing ‘Emotional Harm’ To Abortion Seekers

TRENTON (LifeSiteNews) — The New Jersey legislature is considering a bill that would criminalize “interference with reproductive health care services,” potentially opening peaceful protesters of abortion and “gender transition” facilities to new legal persecution.

Bill A2218 states that someone is “guilty of interference with reproductive health care services” if he or she knowingly and intentionally “inflicts or attempts to inflict bodily injury on another person” or intimidation for the purpose of restricting access to “reproductive health care services”; obstructing access to the entrance or exit of such a facility; using force, threats, intimidation, or coercion to keep someone from “becoming or remaining a patient, provider, volunteer, or assistant” in such services; “damages, defaces, or destroys” related property; or “causes a reasonable person to suffer damage to the person’s business or personal reputation, financial harm, or pain and suffering, mental anguish, or emotional harm on the basis that the person, entity, or facility provides, volunteers, assists with, or receives reproductive health care services.”

That last provision in particular would potentially open up lawful activists to punishment on vague and subjective criteria for peacefully protesting on public property outside of abortion facilities or “gender clinics.”

The bill passed the New Jersey Senate last month, and is currently pending before the state Assembly.

Central Jersey reports that Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz claimed that the “bill is to protect healthcare. Not a political debate. Not a culture war talking point. Healthcare” – conflated gender mutilation and the killing of the unborn with medical care. 

New Jersey Right to Life executive director Marie Tasy warned that the “threat of prosecution is enough to silence lawful speech. And that happens to be exactly what this bill is designed to accomplish.”

Attorney CJ Griffin, director of the law firm Pashman Stein’s Public Interest Center, agreed that the bill “punishes any speech — even truthful speech and opinions — if it harms someone’s reputation or hurts their feelings.”

New Jersey is one of nine states with no gestational limits on abortion, enabling the opening this summer of a so-called “all-trimester” abortion facility. In March, Democrat Gov. Mikie Sherrill unveiled a 2027 budget proposal that allocated $52 million to the abortion industry even as the state faces a $3 billion budget deficit.

The state also has a record of hostility for the rights of residents who disagree. New Jersey is one of 13 states currently under federal investigation for suspicions of coercing health providers into covering abortion in violation of federal law, and, in April, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided with a group of faith-based pregnancy centers suing New Jersey for trying to force them to turn over massive amounts of donor information and confidential internal documents.