New Jersey already has laws against assault, threats, stalking, trespassing, coercion, and blocking access to private property. Yet Gov. Mikie Sherrill recently signed S2260/A2218, creating a new crime specifically for “interference with reproductive health care services” and new avenues for legal action against those accused of interfering with abortion and other covered services.

That raises two simple questions: Why does abortion need its own special legal protections when the conduct lawmakers say they are targeting was already illegal? And what constitutes “interference”?

The Pro-Life Generation does not defend violence, threats, vandalism, or physically preventing someone from entering a building. The legislation itself recognizes that such conduct may already be prosecuted under statutes covering assault, terroristic threats, stalking, criminal coercion, and criminal trespass.

Gov. Sherrill says the new law is about ensuring that “no one should fear intimidation or violence for seeking healthcare...”

But if New Jersey already criminalized such conduct, why was an entirely new abortion-specific enforcement regime necessary?

S2260 makes it a crime to injure, threaten, intimidate, or physically obstruct those seeking or providing covered reproductive healthcare services, including abortion. The law also hands New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and........

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