CHICAGO (OSV News) ─ A federal appellate court in Chicago heard oral arguments April 10 in a case challenging an Illinois law that compels pro-life physicians and pregnancy centers to give patients who ask for it a referral to an abortion provider.
Erin Hawley, counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a public interest firm dedicated to religious freedom, went before a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to argue against the law on behalf of pro-life physicians and pregnancy centers.
The case is Shroeder et al v. Treto Jr., and the lawsuit has to do with a provision left in place by U.S. District Judge Iain D. Johnston in a split decision handed down a year ago.
On April 4, 2025, Judge Johnston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois struck down the part of the state's 2016 Health Care Right of Conscience Act that required pro-life physicians and pregnancy centers to share the "benefits of abortion" after giving a pregnant woman an ultrasound ─ or lose their conscience protection rights.
But Johnston upheld a separate amendment to the act which lawyers with the Thomas More Society argued "gutted conscience protections for pro-life physicians and pregnancy centers and required them to refer for abortion."
Johnston ruled the provision "merely regulates professional conduct, instructing clinicians, upon request, to either refer or transfer a patient to another physician, or at least provide her with a list of potential providers," and does not "compel speech."
A preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the act, known as HCRCA, has been in place since 2017.
Hawley told OSV News outside the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago that ADF also believes the district court was "incorrect" on the referral provision.
"The district court found that a referral was conduct (behavior), but, of course, it's speaking words," Hawley said.
"It also conveys a message ─ as the pregnancy center experts expressed at trial ─ that the person you're recommending is capable of performing the surgery and it vouches for them," she said. "So we think, and that the 7th Circuit seemed to agree, that referrals are, in fact, speech that are protected by the First Amendment."
Therefore, Hawley argued, refusing to engage in speech on referrals is also protected by the First Amendment.
Hawley added she was "hopeful" the appellate judges would rule in their favor based on their argument that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Colorado's ban on so-called conversion therapy for minors was unconstitutional.
The justices ruled 8-1 March 31 in Chiles v. Salazar that a "talk therapy" counselor working with clients who wanted to "eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors or grow in the experience of harmony with their bodies," could not be stopped by the state. They said the therapy is based on "how to best speak" and falls under free speech protections.
Schroeder, et al. v. Treto Jr. ─ Mario Treto Jr. heads the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation ─ was filed in 2017 by lawyers for the Thomas More Society. The Catholic-run public interest firm based in Chicago was representing Illinois physician Dr. Ronald Schroeder, 1st Way Pregnancy Support Services, and Pregnancy Aid South Suburbs.
Patrick Gillen, Thomas More Society senior counsel, said he was "hopeful that they'll recognize the import of recent decisions like Chiles ... and see that this case is very close" to that type of case.
He told OSV News if this appeal fails, they are prepared to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, calling cases like this "fundamentally important."
"There's no more telling sign of a society and a culture in crisis, than the effort to suppress dissent," Gillen said.
With these cases, he said, "it becomes vitally important to push back against what I call a totalitarian impulse on the part of the state to control the speech and thoughts of their citizenry on matters of life and death importance."
- - -
Simone Orendain is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Chicago.
