By Shawn Hyland
New Jersey’s government has become known for enforcing laws through the “honor system.” By design, they remove safeguards, verification, and accountability measures that would prevent bad actors from violating the law. Instead of implementing meaningful protections, they choose to blindly trust individuals and institutions to comply, relying almost entirely on the honor system.
This pattern of lax enforcement produced a national embarrassment in our state’s voter‑registration process. Non‑citizens were able to register to vote simply by applying for a driver’s license. The only barrier in place were signs posted on the wall of local motor vehicle offices reminding applicants that only citizens may register to vote. Thousands disregarded the warning and violated the law. When put to the test, the “honor system” collapsed.
Governor Sherrill has refused to hold them accountable, even those that voted.
Today, Governor Sherrill signed the new “shield law,” a measure that mirrors the same failed “honor system” approach applied to abortion and gender‑transition procedures. Rather than establishing safeguards or accountability, the law relies on blind trust as its mechanism for preventing bad actors in the medical field from violating New Jersey’s statutes.
Providers who perform late‑term abortions or prescribe cross‑sex hormones to underage minors from out of state, even those who arrive here possibly without parental consent, are effectively shielded from meaningful oversight. In practice, the law removes the very protections that should exist when minors are involved and replaces them with yet another version of the “honor system”.
Proponents of the law will argue that it merely shields doctors from out‑of‑state investigations when they provide health‑care services that are legal in New Jersey. But we need to look no further than the chosen ceremonial bill‑signing location to understand the real implications—the infamous Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey center in Montclair.
By selecting that site, the Governor signaled that she has no intention of holding Planned Parenthood accountable should they violate New Jersey’s parental‑consent requirements when prescribing puberty blockers or cross‑sex hormones to minors. The message is unmistakable: even if state law is broken, enforcement will be selectively ignored, because Planned Parenthood gets to operate under the cross‑your‑fingers‑and‑swear‑to‑God “honor system.”
Throughout today’s ceremony, both bill sponsors, Senator Teresa Ruiz (D) and Assemblywoman Peterpaul (D), referenced the amendments that were added to “get the job done” and push this bill across the finish line.
Friends, never forget that the original bill language would have created a fourth‑degree crime for causing an abortion or gender‑transition provider to lose business or suffer reputational harm simply by being openly critical of these procedures. That was their starting point. Only after intense public pressure did lawmakers retreat from criminalizing speech. Their goal to imprison us fell short – for that we are thankful.
