Bonta announced last fall he is suing Heartbeat International because the pro-life organization is using its chain of pregnancy centers to offer abortion pill reversal to women who take the abortion pill, mifepristone. The reversal pill, which contains progesterone, can be taken after mifepristone to counteract the first stages of a chemical abortion. It is ineffective once a woman swallows the second pill, misoprostol.
Five of Heartbeat International's pregnancy centers are located in California under the name RealOptions, which operates a hotline for women who have taken mifepristone, making them a political target of the abortion-defending attorney general.
“HBI and RealOptions took advantage of pregnant patients at a deeply vulnerable time in their lives, using false and misleading claims to lure them in and mislead them about a potentially risky procedure,” Bonta (pictured above) announced in September. “We are launching today’s lawsuit to put a stop to their predatory and unlawful behavior.”
Peter Breen, an attorney with Thomas More Society, says Bonta is trying to “silence” Heartbeat International and shut down its abortion pill reversal.
Despite claims by Bonta that Heartbeat International is lying about the reversal process – his statement uses the word “misleading” five times - Breen says the process is effective and numerous court documents have pointed that out.
The lawsuit was brought in Alameda County, California, which Breen calls a “tough jurisdiction” for Thomas More and its pro-life client.
In their latest filing, on February 6, Breen and Thomas More are asking Alameda County Superior Court to throw out Bonta’s lawsuit.
"We have fought back now with multiple filings – hundreds of pages – of legal argument and evidence," Breen says, "in the most broad-based counteract by the pro-life movement against pro-abortion politicians, like Rob Bonta and others, who would shut down the life-saving abortion pill reversal process."
