Welcome to the TMS Weekly Dispatch for April 28, 2025—with the latest news and updates from the front line, to keep you in-the-know on all things Thomas More Society. If you missed last week’s Dispatch, you may read it by clicking here.

TMS OP-ED HIGHLIGHTS FIGHT AGAINST ILLINOIS ABORTION SPEECH MANDATE IN THE FEDERALIST: Thomas More Society Executive Vice President Tom Olp penned an op-ed this week in The Federalist, sharing a unique perspective on Illinois’ abortion promotion and referral mandates, and what comes next for pro-life pregnancy centers and doctors.  

From the opinion piece:  

Illinois politicians tried to dim the light of conscience and clamp down on free speech, and they have again been corrected by the courts. But for pro-life ministries across the Land of Lincoln, a deep moral and constitutional tension persists. It may take another decade, but where conscience and state power collide, we believe conscience will have the final say.

Read the full op-ed here.  

Thomas More Society recently won victory against Illinois when the state struck down its unconstitutional abortion promotion mandate. Illinois is now readying to appeal this victory, and Thomas More Society stands to defend Illinois’ pro-life ministries.  

The fight also continues on another battlefront, against the state’s abortion referral mandate, which was ruled constitutional in that same court decision. Thomas More Society is appealing against the ruling to permanently stop the Land of Lincoln’s abortion referral mandate. To learn more about the case, Schroeder, et al. v. Treto, Jr., click here.

NEW STUDY REVEALS DEVASTATING EFFECTS OF ABORTION PILL—UNDERSCORING IMPORTANCE OF PROTECTING ABORTION PILL REVERSAL:

A new, groundbreaking study released today by the Ethics and Public Policy Center provides further information on the devasting effects of the abortion pill, as revealed by insurance data.

The study found that:

• 10.93 percent of women experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following a chemical abortion.

• The real-world rate of serious adverse events following mifepristone abortions (or, the abortion pill) is at least 22 times higher as the figure of “less than 0.5 percent” in clinical trials reported on the drug’s FDA-required label.

While abortion proponents claim that the abortion pill is “safe” and “effective,” this couldn’t be further from the truth, and the data proves it. Radical abortion extremists like New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Attorney General Rob Bonta seek to deny women the option to reverse their chemical abortion and save their babies through Abortion Pill Reversal (progesterone supplementation).  

Thomas More Society is fighting back on both coasts to protect pregnancy centers who promote and offer this lifesaving resource, by defending Heartbeat International (which operates the Abortion Pill Rescue© Network) against the current onslaught of lawfare brought against them by pro-abortion states like New York and California.

THOMAS MORE SOCIETY CELEBRATES 11^TH ANNIVERSARY OF FINAL SCHEIDLER VICTORY: Tomorrow, April 29, Thomas More Society celebrates the final 2014 victory in N.O.W. v. Scheidler, the historic 28-year legal journey that safeguarded pro-life advocacy and protected free speech. This landmark case, which went to the United States Supreme Court an unprecedented three times, stands as a testament to the courage of pro-life hero Joe Scheidler and unwavering commitment—as well as unshakeable optimism—of Thomas More Society founder and president, Tom Brejcha. April 29^th, “the day the abortion industry paid,” is the day that a federal appellate panel unanimously ordered that N.O.W. must pay $63,391.45 in reimbursable costs and fees to Scheidler and his co-defendants.

Illinois 7^th Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook, who authored the 2014 opinion, wrote:  

[The pro-lifers’ claims are] modest for a suit that entailed discovery, a long trial, many motions in the district court, and appellate proceedings that span a generation… This litigation has lasted far too long. At last it is over.

 To learn the full case story, watch the mini-documentary, Fighting for Life: The Story of NOW v. Scheidler, here.