Connie Nichols believes there is power in numbers. She also believes in freedom of speech and sparing women the heartbreak and pain of abortion.
As Center and Client Services Director for PRC of the Valleys Nichols and two colleagues traveled some two-and-a-half hours one-way recently to show support for pregnancy help centers being targeted by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“They had wanted a lot of people there to show support for the centers that are being sued,” Nichols said. “So, we wanted to show our support.”
James is suing several pregnancy help organizations seeking to thwart their sharing of information about Abortion Pill Reversal (APR).
Attorneys in two cases brought by James were in federal court in Buffalo in August to request a preliminary injunction against James to bar her from prosecuting pregnancy help centers that offer information on APR while the cases are litigated.
Representatives from Heartbeat International, which manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN), and pregnancy help personnel from centers across the state came together for the court hearing, to show support and unity in the pregnancy help community. Heartbeat, the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the U.S. and globally, is the subject of a third lawsuit brought by James in state court.
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APR is an updated application of a decades-old treatment to combat miscarriage that has drawn the ire of abortion proponents who attempt to dismiss it as junk science or otherwise suppress it legislatively or legally.
The protocol counters the first of two abortion drugs in a chemical abortion by replacing the progesterone blocked by the first abortion drug. Progesterone is the natural hormone that sustains a woman’s pregnancy.
The fact that women change their mind after starting their chemical abortion and seek to sustain their pregnancies demonstrates that women can have regret over abortion, and APR presents both a second chance at life for a woman’s child and an alternative to abortion.
To date, statistics show that more than 5,000 lives and counting have been saved through APR.
Nonetheless the abortion lobby, including some pro-abortion elected officials, do not want information on Abortion Pill Reversal to be shared with women. Between James and the attorney general of California, there are multiple lawsuits in both state and federal court over providing information about Abortion Pill Reversal.
Since providing women progesterone to sustain their pregnancy is itself not in question, the lawsuits concern providing information and the issue at hand is freedom of speech.
PRC of the Valleys, which has locations in Corning, Bath, Hornell, and Mt. Morris, New York, is not part of the APRN, a network of more than 1,400 healthcare professionals, pregnancy centers and hospitals that facilitate APR worldwide. Like one of the New York centers that is being sued by James, the center simply provides women seeking to save their pregnancies with information about the APRN.
And while they are neither part of the APRN nor currently connected to any of the lawsuits, Nichols, who was acting Director at the time of the Buffalo hearing, has urged the Board of Directors for PRC of the Valleys to consider joining in one of the counter suits.
Nichols feels that although they are not currently being targeted outright in this offensive on APR, it could come at a later date given the hostile climate for life-affirming organizations in New York.
The lawsuits brought against New York pregnancy centers by James over sharing information about APR are not the first onslaught on pregnancy help from state government. Last year, the New York State Department of Health sent a survey to pregnancy centers seeking internal information about their operations, widely regarded as a precursor to efforts to shut them down for not offering or referring for abortion.
Nichols said they were thankful to not be part of the legal proceedings over APR at least for now.
“But that doesn't mean that we're protected,” she said.
Nichols thought it was important to be part of conveying support for the other New York centers, thus, her and her colleagues traveling to be present and show support for the other organizations that are being targeted by James at the hearing, which was followed by a press conference with pregnancy help organizations and their pro-life legal firms.
“They're trying different methods, and we could be targeted next, and we wanted to be there,” she said of the APR lawsuits. “But at the same time, there's power in numbers.”
Nichols was joined at the federal hearing by Mary Savercool, one of PRC of the Valleys’ ultrasound RNs, along with Deb Perry, Center and Client Services Director of the Hornell and Mt. Morris office. Nichols had opened up the possibility of coming to her team and her colleagues wanted to come as well to be there and show support.
But it wasn’t just the freedom to provide women a second chance with information on APR that drove Nichols to go to Buffalo and attend the hearing.
“I have been co-facilitating virtual abortion healing support groups this past year,” she explained. “This has given me a deeper insight of the struggles, heartbreak and pain of abortion.”
“Even when women 'choose' abortion' it is often at the hands of misinformation, information and choices being withheld from them, and/or their being influenced,” she said.
One client shared with Nichols that she thought it was only after abortion drugs were given to her on the third scheduled attempt at abortion at the abortion facility that prompted her to go through with the abortion. She was simply worn down.
“She couldn't understand why they wouldn't just tell her that she wasn't ready and that maybe she should reconsider,” Nichols recalled.
“A woman should have the opportunity to reconsider having an abortion and/or reversing the effects of a pill that she may or may not have agreed to take,” Nichols said.
She said that women considering Abortion Pill Reversal should be allowed to weigh their own options when it comes to APR - similar to what abortion proponents claim to want for women consider abortion.
Tweet This: A woman should be free to reconsider having an abortion and to reverse the effects of a pill that she may or may not have agreed to take.
After serving post-abortive women in her center, she is doubtful that one can reduce abortion to simply a “choice.”
“I think even the people who feel that that was the best decision are still hurting,” Nichols said.
One client told Nichols that even though she didn’t think so at the time, she later realized that she could have overcome the hurdles she was facing with her unplanned pregnancy. And then there are those who are struggling with addictions, she said, thinking they have no other choice but abortion. In these instances, Nichols said she has heard from clients, “I just want my baby back.”
With a commitment to serving these women and hopefully sparing more women from this heartbreak, she and her colleagues joined with their fellow New York pregnancy help servants to communicate to the State of New York that they will continue to provide life-affirming information to women, even though PRC of the Valleys is not in the hot seat right now.
She cautioned against complacency and thinking that pregnancy centers can simply fly under the radar with governments looking to suppress pregnancy help.
“They know we're here. We’re just not targeted this time,” Nichols said. “But next time … We need to stand together. We need to stand together for sure.”
In a win for pregnancy help and freedom of speech, a federal judge granted a temporary injunction on August 22 in one of the New York cases, blocking James from taking legal action against the pregnancy centers while the case is litigated. The judge ruled that the pregnancy centers are likely to succeed in their claims and emphasized that the First Amendment protects their right to provide truthful information about Abortion Pill Reversal.
The judge similarly granted a preliminary injunction on September 24 in the other federal case, blocking James from silencing the pregnancy help organizations from sharing information about Abortion Pill Reversal while the lawsuit moves forward.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News. Heartbeat is currently the subject of two lawsuits brought by state attorneys general regarding sharing information on Abortion Pill Reversal.
