Tag Archives: ADF: Matthew S. Bowman

Newsmax: The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) plan to hold a conference call with the media Tuesday morning, to discuss ADF’s latest report to Congress alleging waste, abuse, and potential fraud by Planned Parenthood. [more]

OneNewsNow.com: “The city should recognize that using sleight of hand to force pro-life centers to post a message the city wants does not solve the First Amendment problems with the law,” says Bowman. “Courts around the country have been striking these types of laws down that target pro-life pregnancy centers.”

LifeNews.com: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman commented on the law and the lawsuit in remarks to LifeNews.com. “Pro-life pregnancy centers, which freely offer real help and hope to women and their preborn children, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of those who make their money aborting babies,” he said. “This order keeps the city from enforcing a law that is specifically designed to deter pregnant women from receiving the help they need to make fully informed choices about their pregnancy while this lawsuit goes forward. The order also means that the court is likely to find the ordinance unconstitutional.” Bowman noted the court was also critical of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s defense of the city ordinance: “Given the New York Civil Liberties Union’s (“NYCLU”) usual concern for First Amendment rights, its amicus brief supporting Defendant’s expansive view of the commercial speech doctrine is puzzling.”

LifeNews.com: Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund are also part of the lawsuit. “Pregnancy centers, which offer real help and hope to women, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Attacks such as this ordinance are an ideologically motivated attempt to distract from the growing national scandals in the abortion industry. For years, abortionists have preyed on women and girls to generate profits. Now, pro-abortion politicians are trying to give women fewer choices.”

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss this. | MP3 audio 13:13 mins

Christian Institute: ADF’s Matt Bowman, who represented the nurses, said: “No pro-life medical personnel should be forced to assist or train in services related to abortions. The hospital has finally done the right thing in agreeing to obey the law and not force our clients to do any work on abortion cases in violation of their beliefs”. He added: “The hospital agreed not to penalize our clients in any way because they choose not to participate in abortion according to their legal rights.”

NC Register (12/28): According to the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented the 12 nurses, the terms of the settlement require that if a woman suffers a true emergency from an abortion, the nursse will help protect her until other staff, such as the emergency team, arrives moments later. “Because the abortions are all elective, outpatient surgeries, and the court is requiring the hospital to fully staff all abortion cases with non-objecting medical personnel, the pro-life nurses should never actually be needed in any such case,” the ADF statement said. [more Matt Bowman quoted]

Christian Examiner: “No pro-life medical personnel should be forced to assist or train in services related to abortions. The hospital has finally done the right thing in agreeing to obey the law and not force our clients to do any work on abortion cases in violation of their beliefs,” said ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman. “The hospital agreed not to penalize our clients in any way because they choose not to participate in abortion, according to their legal rights.”

David Bohon The New American: ADF Attorney Matt Bowman, who represented the nurses in the case, recalled that the change in hospital policy had come “out of the blue,” noting that UMDNJ “had been performing abortions for decades without forcing nurses to violate their religious beliefs.” In September hospital officials announced to nurses at the Same Day Surgery Unit that they would now be required to assist with the procedures. The hospital instituted the policy change the following month “and repeatedly threatened that they must assist abortions or be terminated,” Bowman explained. “When one nurse objected to assisting abortions on the grounds of her religious beliefs, a supervisor responded that UMDNJ has ‘no regard for religious beliefs’ of nurses who object to participating in abortions.”

Catholic Culture (12/28): “It is a victory because the hospital finally agreed to obey the law and not force our clients to do any work on abortion cases in violation of their beliefs,” said the nurses’ attorney, Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund. “The hospital agreed not to penalize our clients in any way because they choose to not help abortions, according to their legal rights. The hospital is required to fully staff all abortion cases so that our clients would never be needed for those cases, and the hospital cannot use pro-abortion staff to replace our clients or reduce their hours.”

National Right to Life News (12/28): Last week I asked the nurses’ lawyer, Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, how he would describe the settlement: a “victory” he told National Right to Life News Today. “It is a victory because the hospital finally agreed to obey the law and not force our clients to do any work on abortion cases in violation of their beliefs. The hospital agreed not to penalize our clients in any way because they choose to not help abortions, according to their legal rights. The hospital is required to fully staff all abortion cases so that our clients would never be needed for those cases, and the hospital cannot use pro-abortion staff to replace our clients or reduce their hours. The judge warned the hospital that our clients could return to his court if they were assigned to work abortion cases or if the hospital claims that routine abortions are emergencies. We hope that other hospitals will realize that they should agree to obey conscience laws that protect pro-life medical personnel.”

Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Matt Bowman will be available for media interviews following a court hearing Thursday in the case of 12 nurses being forced to assist with abortions at a New Jersey hospital.

Washington Examiner: A coalition of groups have challenged the HHS rule in federal court. Kevin Theriot and Matthew S. Bowman of ADF argue in their suit that “no federal rule has defined being ‘religious’ as narrowly and discriminatorily as the [HHS] mandate appears to do, and no regulation has ever so directly proposed to violate plain statutory and constitutional religious freedoms.” | The article incorrectly mentions a lawsuit.  ADF submitted this letter to HHS on behalf of several organizations and colleges.

Business Management Daily: Lawyers for the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian nonprofit organization, represent the nurses and requested the injunction. More hearings on the case are scheduled for this month.

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Laura Ingraham Show to discuss the situation. | MP3 audio 14:20 mins

»The Catholic Review Online: “The hospital is threatening to impose discriminatory transfers or changes in the employment conditions for these nurses because of their religious and moral objections to abortion,” he said. “Such discrimination against pro-life nurses violates state and federal law, the court’s order in this case and even the hospital’s own public statements saying that no nurse must assist in procedures to which they object.”

Trenton Monitor: But the term “assisting in an abortion” covers a wide range of moral, ethical and religious ground said Demetrios Stratis, a Fair Lawn attorney who is the local counsel. Any action that facilitates the abortion – from filling out forms, to being present at the procedure to holding a patient’s hand during the procedure – could be considered assisting, Stratis told the press. Matt Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of Christian lawyers and organizations that is representing the nurses, said that previously the hospital hired per-diem nurses or those who volunteered to assist with abortions to help perform them. [more quotes]

The Washington Post: Bowman argued that requiring the nurses to get involved before and after an abortion violated their right to refuse based on their conscientious objections. “Federal and state law explicitly prohibits requiring nurses to assist in abortion against their moral and religious convictions,” Bowman said. “All these nurses are asking is that they not have to assist in any part of an abortion case.” . . . “The more regulations that exist to enforce federal law protecting conscience rights, the better,” Bowman said

Greeley Gazette: The only thing stopping them right now is the court order. They are arguing they should be allowed to force the nurses to assist in the abortions,” Bowman said. “The hospital filed a brief Tuesday, arguing why it should be allowed to break the law and violate the nurse’s conscience rights.” “Abortion institutions around the country think that they can violate clear federal and state laws that prohibit forcing a person to participate in an abortion. This is a very clear violation of religious freedom.”

Hospital accused of bullying nurses who oppose abortion: But according to a report from the Alliance Defense Fund, the hospital – after the judge’s order – told nurses who objected to being ordered to participate in abortions that among the “accommodations” that could be arranged would be “changes in duties, changes in scheduling, and/or transfer to another nursing position that does not involve duties that are objectionable.”

LifeNews.com: Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund says Judge Garbis’ ruling was a correct one. “The judge ruled that the law’s attempt to burden speech unconstitutionally discriminated against noncommercial, unlicensed speech on the explicit basis that it came from a perspective disfavoring abortion,” he said, calling it a “monumental decision protecting free speech and women’s health.”

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys representing 12 pro-life nurses filed a motion for an emergency court order Friday against the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. In violation of an existing court order, UMDNJ is attempting to force the nurses into meetings that would impose discriminatory job “transfer” and other “changes” to their employment solely because of their objections to helping with abortions.

LifeNews.com: These pro-life nurses shouldn’t be bullied into employment discrimination that is forbidden both by federal law and a court order,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The hospital is threatening to impose discriminatory transfers or changes in the employment conditions for these nurses because of their religious and moral objections to abortion. Such discrimination against pro-life nurses violates state and federal law, the court’s order in this case, and even the hospital’s own public statements saying that no nurse must assist in procedures to which they object.”

Kathryn Jean Lopez at NCRegister.com: “Public funding should go toward helping and caring for the most vulnerable Americans, not killing them,” said Matt Bowman, legal counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, which frequently goes to bat for conscience issues in court. “Clearly, the American taxpayers should not be forced to fund abortions, especially during tough economic times, but the health-care act threatens to do that and more. It threatens the conscience rights of health professionals, payers and employers, because it is not subject to existing federal conscience-protection laws, and Congress failed to apply comprehensive conscience protections to the statute. In addition, HHS recently mandated that all employers provide plans that cover abortifacients, contraception and sterilization.”

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Drew Mariani Show to discuss the erosion of conscience rights in America and the NJ Nurses case. | MP3 audio 8:50 mins

State Senator Jim Shockley and Margaret Dor at the Montana Lawyer at p. 8 (Nov. 2011): Attorneys Greg Jackson and Matt Bowman provide this analysis: If the idea of suicide itself is suggested to the patient first by the doctor or even by the family, instead of being on the patient’s sole initiative, the situation exceeds “aid in dying” as conceived by the Court. If a particular suicide decision process is anything but “private, civil, and compassionate,” . . . , the Court’s decision wouldn’t guarantee a consent defense. If the patient is less than “conscious,” is unable to “vocalize” his decision, or gets help because he is unable to “self-administer,” or the drug fails and someone helps complete the killing, Baxter would not apply. No doctor can prevent these human contingencies from occurring in a given case . . . in order to make sure that he can later use the consent defense if he is charged with murder. (Analysis of Implications of the Baxter Case on Potential Criminal Liability, Spring 2010, at www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/p/baxter-case-analysis.html)

NRL News Today: While the nuts and bolts of any story are essential, the “human element” is what makes it real to someone who is not directly involved . . . In response to a lawsuit filed on the nurses’ behalf by the Alliance Defense Fund, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey insists that nurses are not required to have direct involvement in abortions, which infuriates the nurses, Congressman Chris Smith, and the nurses’ attorney, Matt Bowman. Bowman quoted from an email from the hospital’s attorneys which Bowman pointed out was factually incorrect. First, nurses had been required—and had participated—in abortions. Second, the hospital conceded that “they [the nurses] are required to provide patients who have elected to terminate their pregnancies with pre-operative care (not including the administration of induction medications), and postoperative care.”

LifeNews.com: No nurse should be forced to violate her religious or moral beliefs in order to keep her job. Nursing is a healing profession, and the law protects our right not to provide any services related to abortion. We are thankful that the Alliance Defense Fund and Mr. Stratis are standing by our side to protect our rights. For a few weeks at least, we can sleep soundly at night knowing that we also will be respected in our right to choose not participate in killing innocent lives.

Huffington Post (Religion News Service): “The law said they don’t have to assist any part of the (abortion) case,” said Matt Bowman, the attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund.

Catholic News Agency (CNA): Alliance Defense Fund attorneys are representing the nurses in the lawsuit. “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist or train in services related to abortions,” said ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman. “These 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in abortion cases regardless of their religious and moral objections.”

Yesterday, ADF Attorney Steve Aden appeared on Zeb at the Ranch with Guest Host Sharon Hardy Milles to discuss the NC litigation (Stuart v. Huff) and the NJ litigation (Danquah v. University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey lawsuit). | MP3 audio 18:10 mins | Earlier on November 7th, ADF Attorney Matt Bowman also appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to provide an update on the NJ litigation. | MP3 audio 16:39 mins

NCRegister.com: Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, joined some of the 12 nurses at a press conference yesterday, Nov. 14, outside of University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, N.J.

Daily Mail Online: Matthew Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Vinoya and the eleven other nurses. He said each ‘possess[es] strongly held religious and moral beliefs that she may not participate in the process of an abortion that causes the death of a pre-born child’.

World Net Daily: hat’s according to Alan Sears, an executive with the Alliance Defense Fund, which has gone to court to obtain an order halting the hospital’s plans for now. “Cases like this are increasingly common in the U.S., as the battle over abortion spurs attacks on rights of individual conscience,” he penned in a website column posted by the ADF. “ADF is involved in a similar lawsuit in New York State court.”

Todd Starnes at Fox News: Matthew Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Vinoya and the eleven other nurses. who “possess strongly held religious and moral beliefs that she may not participate in the process of an abortion that causes the death of a preborn child.”
Bowman told Fox News & Commentary that the hospital had been performing abortions for decades without forcing nurses to violate their religious beliefs. But that changed a few weeks ago.

Philly.com (11/11): The hospital is playing word games, as noted by the nurses’ attorney, Matt Bowman: But once the media began asking UMDNJ about their illegal behavior, they lied to cover it up. As of the time of this writing, UMDNJ still will not tell ADF attorneys if it has backed off from its Nov. 2 directive requiring nurses to assist. Yet UMDNJ continues to tell the media that no nurse is so require.

NJ Star Ledger: “The law said they don’t have to assist any part of the (abortion) case,” said Matt Bowman, the attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund. Demetrios Stratis, a Fair Lawn attorney who’s the local counsel, said the definition of what constitutes assisting in an abortion could be very fine.

News from Missouri Family Policy Council: The Alliance Defense Fund is representing the nurses in the case. Matt Bowman, legal counsel for ADF, says the hospital’s actions are “flatly illegal.” “These twelve nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since the policy change required them to participate in abortions regardless of their religious and moral objections.” [more]

Washington Examiner: Matt Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of Christian lawyers and organizations that is representing the nurses, said the hospital had previously hired per-diem nurses or those who volunteered to assist with abortions to help perform them. Bowman said the hospital notified nurses in writing in September that its new policy would require same-day surgery unit nurses to assist in abortions. The nurses filed suit on Oct. 31, claiming the hospital was compelling them to undergo training that involved assisting in abortions, and indicated they could be subject to termination if they didn’t comply.

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman at National Review Online: As we all know from politics, and from our childhood, real trouble comes not so much from breaking the rules but from lying to cover it up. Yet that’s exactly what the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey is doing to cover up its illegal insistence that nurses assist in abortions, in violation of their religious and moral beliefs.

Several of the 12 nurses who recently filed suit to stop a New Jersey hospital from forcing them to help with abortions will participate in a press conference Monday at 1 p.m. EST. Joining the nurses will be U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) . . .

NRL News Today: According to the Alliance Defense Fund, which is defending the twelve nurses, “The order also prohibits any acts of employment discrimination against the nurses until that matter is resolved.” The ADF filed suit Monday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, on behalf of the nurses who “possess strongly held religious and moral beliefs that she may not participate in the process of an abortion that causes the death of a preborn child,” according to ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman.

Christian Post: “The hospital has been relentless in demanding that these nurses participate in abortion procedures,” Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matt Bowman told The Christian Post. “It’s indisputable that the hospital is seeking to break both federal and state laws. The sole purpose of passing laws was to protect people after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land.”

Catholic News Agency (CNA): “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist or train in services related to abortions. Federal and state law both prohibit this,” said Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matt Bowman.

OneNewsNow.com: Attorney Matt Bowman laments the fact that the hospital continues to push the issue, despite the federal restrictions. “These … nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortion cases, regardless of their religious and moral objections,” the attorney explains. “The court’s order prevents that until the November 18 hearing, but it is disturbing that the hospital may fight to continue violating laws that clearly protect conscience rights.”

WORLDmag.com : ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman said that the hospital’s directive was “flatly illegal.” The Christian Post also reports that the ADF is handling a similar case involving Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. This seems like a straightforward case of a hospital breaking the law, and perhaps there will be a happy ending. I’m grateful the ADF is on the case, and for the temporary restraining order

WorldNetDaily: “These 12 nurses,” said ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman, “have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortion cases regardless of their religious and moral objections. The court’s order prevents that until the Nov. 18 hearing, but it is disturbing that the hospital may fight to continue violating laws that clearly protect conscience rights.”

NRL News Today: The ADF filed suit in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, on behalf of the nurses who “possess strongly held religious and moral beliefs that she may not participate in the process of an abortion that causes the death of a preborn child,” according to ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections,” he said. “That is flatly illegal.”

LifeNews.com: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman told LifeNews . . . “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist or train in services related to abortions. Federal and state law both prohibit this,” he said. “These 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortion cases regardless of their religious and moral objections. The court’s order prevents that until the Nov. 18 hearing, but it is disturbing that the hospital may fight to continue violating laws that clearly protect conscience rights.”

Wesley J. Smith at Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: The ADF is at it again, at least temporarily saving the life of a man who was temporarily unconscious from a heart attack. From the ADF press release:

The Frederick News-Post Online: Cox said he was not aware of the organization’s involvement, but he said he was referred to the case by the Alliance Defense Fund. The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network said in the news release it is working with the Alliance Defense Fund.

NRL News Today: “Everyone deserves a chance to recover,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “There is no question that Daniel expressly stated his desire to live, and yet he was denied the food and water he needed to survive. His wishes should have been followed. ADF sees far too many situations involving hasty decisions to pull the plug on a human life.”

OneNewsNow.com: ADF attorney Matt Bowman tells OneNewsNow they were successful in obtaining a court order to keep Sanger alive. “Everyone deserves a chance to recover,” says the attorney. “There’s no question that Daniel expressly stated his desire to live, and yet he was denied the food and water he needed to survive. His wishes should have been followed.”

LifeNews.com: “Everyone deserves a chance to recover,” said ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman. “There is no question that Daniel expressly stated his desire to live, and yet he was denied the food and water he needed to survive. His wishes should have been followed. ADF sees far too many situations involving hasty decisions to pull the plug on a human life.” “The court has done the right thing in granting our request to have Daniel’s food and hydration restored,” said Sanger’s legal counsel Daniel Cox.

Patrick J. Reilley at Washington Times: Writing on their behalf, attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) argued that “federal law simply prohibits the federal government from violating the religious and moral beliefs” of any individual or institution. “No federal rule has defined being ‘religious’ as narrowly and discriminatorily as the [HHS] mandate appears to do, and no regulation has ever so directly proposed to violate plain statutory and constitutional religious freedoms,” wrote ADF’s Kevin Theriot and Matthew S. Bowman.

LifeNews.com: The appeal was organized by The Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education, a division of The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), and authored by attorneys Kevin Theriot and Matthew Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund. Joining the Center and 18 colleges in the letter were the Society of Catholic Social Scientists and Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Bishop Curry, who signed in his individual capacity, is chairman of the Committee for Catholic Education at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Christian Newswire: The appeal was organized by The Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education, a division of The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), and authored by attorneys Kevin Theriot and Matthew Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund.

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Mike Siegel Show to discuss this. | MP3 audio 38:03 mins

LifeSiteNews.com: Alliance Defense Fund lawyers first revealed the existence of the meetings between Obama Justice Department officials and abortion lobbyists last year; although they were able to attend the meetings, the conservative lawyers expressed concern that no one in the pro-life community had been invited to the unpublicized events. The “resource guide” administered at the meetings, said ADF attorney Matthew Bowman, was “not only completely one-sided, it adopts the bias against free speech that the abortion movement has been trying to promote for years.”

ADF Attorney Matthew Bowman at Townhall: When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently put forth their new health coverage mandates, people of faith – and particularly people of faith who operate and work for faith-based organizations – saw the pro-abortion administration’s handwriting on the wall. For included in the mandate is a requirement that all insurance plans, and the people who pay for them, provide free coverage for drugs and devices that can destroy early embryos.

ADF attorney Matt Bowman at Washington Examiner: San Francisco wants to punish speech because pro-life centers appear in Internet searches for “abortion” or because pro-abortion officials call pro-life views “misleading.” Will the ACLU and civil libertarians be consistent and defend speech, or will they again elevate abortion above everything else? | Also on LifeNews

LifeNews.com: Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund says Judge Garbis’ ruling was a correct one. “The judge ruled that the law’s attempt to burden speech unconstitutionally discriminated against noncommercial, unlicensed speech on the explicit basis that it came from a perspective disfavoring abortion,” he said, calling it a “monumental decision protecting free speech and women’s health.”

LifeNews.com: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman commented on the law and the lawsuit in remarks to LifeNews.com. “Pro-life pregnancy centers, which freely offer real help and hope to women and their preborn children, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of those who make their money aborting babies,” he said. “This order keeps the city from enforcing a law that is specifically designed to deter pregnant women from receiving the help they need to make fully informed choices about their pregnancy while this lawsuit goes forward. The order also means that the court is likely to find the ordinance unconstitutional.” Bowman noted the court was also critical of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s defense of the city ordinance: “Given the New York Civil Liberties Union’s (“NYCLU”) usual concern for First Amendment rights, its amicus brief supporting Defendant’s expansive view of the commercial speech doctrine is puzzling.”

LifeNews.com: att Bowman, a pro-life attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, commented on the billboard controversy and said the whole incident outlines the grief fathers bear in the abortion process. “Regardless of the prudential character of this particular billboard, it does highlight a deep and festering wound in our society: the harm that abortion causes to the fathers of aborted children,” he said. “Most attention on post-abortion psychological harm is focused on the mothers, but men similarly have intense grief due to abortions of their children, both when they participate and when the abortion is done against their wishes.”

ADF attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the recent victory in New York and ADF’s ongoing commitment to defend Pregnancy Care Centers. | MP3 audio 12:20 mins

Hot Air: Judge William Pauley III called the new law “offensive to free-speech principles” and halted its enactment while a lawsuit filed on behalf of two pregnancy-care centers and a maternity home by the Alliance Defense Fund continues.

Catholic News Agency (CNA): “Pro-life pregnancy centers, which freely offer real help and hope to women and their preborn children, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of those who make their money aborting babies,” said attorney Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group . . . Attorney Matt Bowman said Judge Pauley’s decision “keeps the city from enforcing a law that is specifically designed to deter pregnant women from receiving the help they need to make fully informed choices about their pregnancy while this lawsuit goes forward.”

Courthouse News Service: A lawyer for the facilities praised the injunction in a press statement. “This order keeps the city from enforcing a law that is specifically designed to deter pregnant women from receiving the help they need to make fully informed choices about their pregnancy while this lawsuit goes forward,” wrote Matthew Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian advocacy group. “The order also means that the court is likely to find the ordinance unconstitutional.”

LifeNews.com: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman commented on the law and the lawsuit in remarks to LifeNews.com. “Pro-life pregnancy centers, which freely offer real help and hope to women and their preborn children, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of those who make their money aborting babies,” he said. “This order keeps the city from enforcing a law that is specifically designed to deter pregnant women from receiving the help they need to make fully informed choices about their pregnancy while this lawsuit goes forward. The order also means that the court is likely to find the ordinance unconstitutional.” Bowman noted the court was also critical of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s defense of the city ordinance: “Given the New York Civil Liberties Union’s (“NYCLU”) usual concern for First Amendment rights, its amicus brief supporting Defendant’s expansive view of the commercial speech doctrine is puzzling.”

LifeNews.com: “State agency medical facilities should only be training and paying residents to protect and preserve preborn children–not destroy them,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman.

Courthouse News Service: Matthew Bowman, an attorney working for another conservative Christian organization called the Alliance Defense Fund, said that many states have different views about abortion and public health. He noted that informed-consent laws in several states obligate doctors to warn women about the cancer and health risks that can supposedly accompany an abortion.

LifeNews.com: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman also commented on the law and the lawsuit in remarks to LifeNews.com. “Pregnancy centers, which offer real help and hope to women, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” he said. “Attacks on pregnancy centers are an ideologically motivated attempt to distract from the growing national scandals in the abortion industry. For years, abortionists have preyed on women and girls for profit. Now pro-abortion politicians are trying to give women fewer choices.”

OneNewsNow.com: Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Matt Bowman tells OneNewsNow the philosophy behind the law is to protect abortion clinics. “Pregnancy centers, which offer real help and hope to women, should not be punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” he argues . . . “The government cannot create special speech rules for people who want to talk about pregnancy choices,” the attorney contends. “And it also cannot target pro-life centers for special sign requirements and fines while leaving speech by abortion clinics unregulated.”

California Catholic Daily – “Political allies of the abortion industry”: “Pregnancy centers, which offer real help and hope to women, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” said ADF attorney Matt Bowman in a prepared statement. “As the district court ruled, the government cannot create special speech rules for people who want to talk about pregnancy choices. And it also cannot target pro-life centers for special sign requirements and fines while leaving speech by abortion clinics unregulated.” “The city (Baltimore) places no sign requirements on Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities regarding services they do not offer,” noted an ADF news release.

Charisma: “Pregnancy centers, which offer real help and hope to women, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman says. “As the district court ruled, the government cannot create special speech rules for people who want to talk about pregnancy choices. And it also cannot target pro-life centers for special sign requirements and fines while leaving speech by abortion clinics unregulated.”