When the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2024, it ushered in another year of reproductive rights being stripped away since the fall of Roe v. Wade. In Illinois, the latest legal decision to impact reproductive health care involves so-called crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), organizations (typically affiliated with national religious groups opposed to contraception) that pose as medical clinics to dissuade pregnant people from considering abortion and other pro-choice options, often through deceptive means.

In a shocking about-face, Illinois attorney general Kwame Raoul’s office announced an agreement last month with anti-abortion advocates that the state will not enforce legislation that would have cracked down on deceptive practices by these fake abortion clinics. It was a surprising move for the attorney general, who’d helped introduce such legislation himself earlier in 2023. As a result, many Illinois abortion rights advocates say they’ll need to work even harder to protect residents seeking reproductive health care.

The agreement followed a legal battle brought by anti-abortion advocacy groups the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, Pro-Life Action League, and Rockford Family Initiative, alongisde CPCs Relevant Pregnancy Options Center in Highland and Women’s Help Services (which runs Johnsburg’s 1st Way Life Center and Focus Women’s Center in McHenry). Together, they collectively sought to challenge the effects of Senate Bill 1909, an amendment to the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, which Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law in late July. They argued the law, which would have prohibited CPCs from engaging in deceptive practices and subjected them to hefty fines of up to $50,000 for each violation, limited their right to free speech.

Iain D. Johnston, a federal judge appointed by former president Donald Trump, temporarily blocked the newly enacted measure soon after it became law and issued a permanent injunction against the state in December, ending Illinois’s ability to penalize CPCs through the act.

Peter Breen, a former Republican state lawmaker currently serving as the executive vice president and head of litigation at the Thomas More Society, an anti-abortion legal advocacy group that represents several Illinois CPCs, wrote in a statement that the agreement is “a win for pro-life ministries and free speech.”

Though Illinois residents can still file complaints against these fake clinics through the attorney general’s website, abortion advocates like Lisa Battisfore, president and treasurer of Reproductive Transparency Now, a volunteer-led organization in Chicago that seeks to educate the public about CPCs, believe it isn’t enough.

Battisfore says she and other reproductive rights advocates felt “blindsided” by Raoul’s agreement, which she believes will give CPCs license to continue endangering the health of Illinoisans for the sake of “political points.”

“There is a lack of understanding that anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers are not just a part of the anti-abortion movement—they are the anti-abortion movement,” Battisfore says. “Crisis pregnancy centers have been a key strategic pillar for anti-abortion advocates for decades. This is all unfolding exactly the way they planned.”

Sometimes known as anti-abortion centers, pregnancy resource centers, pregnancy care centers, limited services pregnancy centers, or fake clinics, these facilities often pose as real medical clinics despite many not having the proper licenses to provide expansive reproductive health care. Many typically only offer ultrasounds or other limited services, like counseling, performed by volunteers.

Their goals, instead, focus on convincing people who come across them not to get abortions, and they overwhelmingly target vulnerable populations, including people of color, low-income communities, and students, Battisfore says. She believes protecting the public from fake clinics is a neglected issue, one that’s pushed aside because it’s more “nuanced” and “complicated” than other, more straightforward abortion access issues.

Before Democratic lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 1909 on Raoul’s behalf, Battisfore says she attempted to get the attorney general’s office to issue a consumer alert, much like ones issued in California, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

California attorney general Rob Bonta, for example, issued a consumer alert—which many state attorneys general release to warn the public about potential scams or frauds—for the state’s CPCs in 2022, cautioning residents seeking reproductive health care about the potentially misleading and limited services the centers often provide.

When Raoul instead threw his support behind legislation that would hold CPCs accountable through preexisting law, Battisfore shifted her attention to support that effort, she says.

Raoul, who initially conceived of the legislation last year, says he was inspired to pursue it after encountering firsthand the deceptive practices employed by CPCs while visiting a Planned Parenthood of Illinois health center, according to a press release from March of last year. Raoul claimed to see people stationed outside of the clinic who, despite appearing as though they worked there, tried to steer people away from entering.

“Patients report being misled into going to crisis pregnancy centers—sometimes even receiving exams and ultrasounds—thinking they were visiting another clinic that offers the full range of reproductive care,” Raoul said in the release. “This is an extreme violation of trust and patient privacy that should not occur in our state.”

However, with the state’s decision not to enforce the new law, abortion advocates like Battisfore will have to find new ways to limit the impact of CPCs. Battisfore believes the attorney general should strongly consider a consumer alert. She and other advocates say Illinois can’t underestimate the impact of fake clinics nor the scope of their reach.