Pro-Life Group Fights New Jersey Law Banning Prayer Outside Abortion Centers

A leading pro-life organization said Wednesday it will pay the legal bills of peaceful activists who face prosecution under a new New Jersey law that bans praying outside abortion businesses.

40 Days for Life said its Institute of Law & Justice will cover civil and criminal defense at no cost for protesters engaged in peaceful activity who run afoul of the measure Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed last week.

The group said vague language about intimidation and threats could be stretched to target people of faith who pray for unborn children outside abortion facilities.

“Prayer is not a crime. Holding a sign is not intimidation. Offering a woman help is not coercion,” 40 Days for Life CEO Shawn Carney said. “This law is designed to scare people of faith off the sidewalks outside abortion facilities by creating the constant threat of prosecution and costly lawsuits.”

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“We will not be intimidated,” Carney said. “If the state tries to weaponize this law against constitutionally protected speech, our Institute of Law & Justice will be there to defend them at no cost.”

The law, S2260/A2218, creates a new crime of “interference with reproductive health care services.” It imposes criminal penalties on those who supposedly “injure, threaten, intimidate, or physically block patients or providers,” or damage property related to “reproductive healthcare services.”

It also expands New Jersey’s shield law restricting cooperation with certain out-of-state investigations such as when abortionists illegally mail dangerous abortion pills to people in pro-life states.

New Jersey Right to Life condemned the signing, saying the legislation grants sweeping legal immunity to abortion providers and builds new barriers to accountability.

“Governor Sherrill just signed a blank check for the abortion industry and a death warrant for countless unborn children with beating hearts, and she did it despite thousands of emails from New Jersey residents urging her to veto this bill,” Executive Director Marie Tasy said. “S2260 does not protect women. It protects the people who end the lives of living human children already growing in the womb. New Jersey should be a sanctuary for mothers and babies, not a legal fortress for those who profit from abortion.”

Tasy said subjective terms in the statute put constitutionally protected expression at risk.

“Because terms such as ‘threat,’ ‘intimidate,’ and ‘coerce’ are inherently subjective and rest on individual feelings, this language poses a serious danger to free speech,” she said. “Peaceful sidewalk counseling, prayer, holding signs, or simply offering help and alternatives outside a facility can easily be labeled ‘intimidation’ by someone who claims to feel threatened, leaving pro-life advocates open to criminal charges that are difficult to disprove and chilling constitutionally protected expression.”

Sherrill’s office said the law will not be used against people who are simply praying, but that’s no guarantee as abortion activists for many years have construed praying and sign-holding to be intimidating.

“Of course peaceful prayer is protected,” spokesman Steve Sigmund said. “This legislation protects patients and providers from threats to their safety, and defends the fundamental freedom to make personal healthcare decisions without fear or intimidation.”

“Nothing in this law prevents lawful, peaceful protest or the exercise of constitutionally protected speech,” Sigmund said. “What is not protected is violence, threats, intimidation, physical obstruction, or property damage intended to interfere with someone receiving or providing reproductive healthcare.”

40 Days for Life said it runs nine vigils in New Jersey each year outside abortion businesses, with an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 participants. The group said legal help will be available only to activists who were engaged in peaceful activity.

New Jersey is one of 10 states and the District of Columbia with legalized abortions up to birth.

Tasy called the new law “a deliberate act of defiance against the most basic human right — the right to life of every child in the womb with a beating heart.”“

No mother should ever be told that the only solution to her crisis is the death of her child; a living human being with a beating heart,” she said. “We will fight for the day when every woman facing an unexpected pregnancy is met with practical support, genuine alternatives, and the unshakable truth that both her life and her child’s life are worth defending.”