A federal appeals court questioned an Illinois law mandating that crisis pregnancy centers provide information about abortions, as the judges grappled with whether the law violates free speech rights or is instead a lawful medical standard of care.
Under the Illinois law, pregnancy centers, which do not offer abortion and typically offer resources for expectant mothers in the hopes they keep the pregnancy, are required to discuss the benefits and risks of having an abortion, and must provide a list of abortion providers if a patient requests one. A federal district court found that the part of the law requiring pregnancy centers to discuss abortion is unlawful, but upheld the part of the law requiring the centers to offer a referral to an abortion clinic if a patient asks. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit heard arguments on Friday in an appeal to that ruling.
The pregnancy centers at the center of the case allege the law unlawfully compels speech and that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, which dismissed the idea that medical professionals have fewer free speech protections in therapy settings, supports their argument.
“Just last week, an 8-1 court in Chiles v. Salazar reaffirmed free speech rights for healthcare professionals and rejected all of the state’s arguments here regarding standards of care, informed consent, and malpractice,” Erin Hawley, the lawyer arguing for the pregnancy centers, told the appeals court panel.
The panel of judges, which included appointees of President Donald Trump, former President Joe Biden, and former President George H.W. Bush, questioned Hawley over whether the Illinois law could be examined under the same free speech standards as the justices said talk therapy restrictions in the Chiles case must be examined under, or if the abortion law deals more with standards of care, which a state can regulate.
One of the judges questioned Hawley on whether there would ever be a scenario in which someone at one of the pregnancy centers would recommend or acknowledge that abortion is an option, to which Hawley responded that “they believe everybody is valuable.”
When another judge followed up by asking if a crisis pregnancy center worker would ever say that abortion “is the worst thing you could ever do, but there is such a thing as abortion,” Hawley responded that the “Supreme Court’s precedent is clear that the ability to disclaim doesn’t allow the state to compel speech.”
Leigh Jahnig, the lawyer defending Illinois’s law, claimed the state was only seeking to enforce medical standards of care and pushed back against comparisons to the Chiles v. Salazar ruling on the speech of medical professionals.
“What we have here is what medical providers must always do, which is look at the circumstances before you and incorporate the general principles about what medical standards are and determine what the standard of care is in that situation, that’s what needs to be done,” Jahnig told the appeals court panel. “It’s not the state putting its thumb on the scale.” Janig also claimed the Illinois law is distinct from the example in Chiles v. Salazar.
Jahnig faced a grilling from the panel on how she views the law as not unlawfully compelling speech, with the judges appearing skeptical of her bid to separate the law from First Amendment scrutiny by claiming it is a viewpoint-neutral standard of care.
“If these protocols were considered speech as speech, they’re content neutral, because, again, this is not the state requiring providers to promote a message of the state’s choosing. It’s the state saying, just like every other non-objecting provider, all providers must follow the standard of care in these two aspects,” Jahnig told the panel.
The appeals court panel did not say when they would rule on the case, but a ruling is expected sometime in the coming months.
Pregnancy centers have been a frequent target of Democratic politicians and abortion-rights advocates, especially following the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which returned abortion lawmaking to the states.
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One of the most high-profile legal battles involving a pregnancy center is First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin, which was argued at the Supreme Court in December 2025.
The case involves a pregnancy center fighting the legality of a sweeping subpoena from the New Jersey attorney general’s office seeking to get access to the center’s donor list. The Supreme Court appeared skeptical of New Jersey’s arguments in defense of the subpoena during the hearing. The justices are expected to issue a ruling in the case in the coming weeks.