Vermont Approves Amendment to Pro-Life Center Advertising Censorship Law

June 4, 2025

Vermont lawmakers have amended a 2023 law that pro-life pregnancy centers said censored their ability to advertise.

Christianity Daily reports that Vermont legislators have modified language in Senate Bill 37 which sought to curb “misleading” advertisements by pro-life pregnancy centers.

The law, signed by Republican Governor Phil Scott in May 2023, defined pregnancy centers that don’t offer abortions or emergency contraception as “limited service centers” and prohibited them from advertising “what is untrue or clearly designed to mislead the public about the nature of services provided.”

Pro-life pregnancy centers could face fines of up to $10,000 if Vermont’s Attorney General found their advertising misleading.

Abortion advocates allege that these centers use “deceptive” strategies to lure women away from abortion clinics and manipulate them into choosing life.

A lawsuit filed in July 2023 by the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, Aspire Now, and the Branches Pregnancy Resource Center, contended that the law “censored the centers’ ability to advertise their free services” and “precluded centers from offering non-medical services, information, and counseling unless provided by a licensed health care provider.”

The suit described Senate Bill 37 as a “vague and viewpoint-discriminatory” standard for misinformation, and argued that it “provides no guidance as to how it should be applied to advertisements including medical information on which there is no medical consensus.”

Last week, following the amendment of the law, the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom filed a stipulated dismissal of the case National Institute of Family and Life Advocates et al v. Clark et al.

Photo: top, Credit: Unsplash/ Sylwia Bartyzel