(Daily Signal)—A new Illinois law prevents pro-life organizations from hiring based on their pro-life views, meaning they could be forced instead to hire abortion advocates whose views violate their core religious beliefs.
Now, a pro-life pregnancy resource center that wants to hire a nurse to counsel women facing unplanned pregnancies and a Catholic diocese are challenging the law in federal court as a First Amendment violation.
Attorneys from the Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom are representing The Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford and the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday against Illinois Department of Human Rights Director James Bennett and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. The complaint asks the court to block enforcement of the law.
The law in question, the Illinois Human Rights Act, was amended as of Jan. 1 to prohibit discrimination based on a person’s “reproductive health decisions,” including abortion, contraception, and fertility treatments. Under the new amendment, employers may not discipline or refuse to hire employees based on such reproductive health decisions and may not engage in “unwelcome” or “offensive” speech and conduct in the workplace regarding reproductive health care.
The law provides no religious exemption for pro-life organizations evaluating employees on reproductive matters. This is a violation of the organizations’ First Amendment rights of association, free exercise of religion, and free speech, according to Alliance Defending Freedom.
“Pro-life groups have a right to hire pro-life employees,” said Mark Lippelmann, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom. “It’s just absurd that the government could force an organization to hire someone who will flagrantly contradict its message.”
The Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, which has served the community for over 100 years, is seeking someone to lead its pro-life office. The employee must promote the sanctity of human life and assist with education on reproductive issues in alignment with church teaching, according to the job posting.
“Our employees represent the diocese and are expected to uphold our standards of conduct to ensure they align with the doctrine and moral teaching of the Catholic Church,” Bishop Thomas John Paprocki said in a statement to The Daily Signal. “However, under the state law, we cannot hire or retain employees based on our deeply held religious beliefs on pro-life teachings without being subject to disciplinary action. We must have the freedom to follow and express our convictions without government interference.”
The legislative history of the bill shows pro-life organizations and pregnancy centers like The Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford were always going to be in a position of conflict with the law, according to Lippelmann.
According to court documents, bill sponsor and Democrat state Sen. Laura Fine said during a legislative debate last year that religious pregnancy centers not formally affiliated with a particular denomination would “unfortunately not” qualify for any religious protections under the bill’s provisions.
Advocates of the bill at the time defended it as a necessary civil rights protection.
“My office is proud to continue to partner with Gov. [JB] Pritzker’s administration to draft legislation and identify new avenues to ensure Illinois is a safe haven for patients to access comprehensive abortion and gender-affirming care,” Illinois’ attorney general said in a press release in December. “I am committed to using the authority of my office to continue to defend against legal challenges to our laws that preserve Illinois as an oasis of reproductive health care.”
The Department of Human Rights and the Office of the Attorney General did not respond to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment.
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
