Tag Archives: ADF: Matthew S. Bowman

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.”

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.”

Spero News: Attorney Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, a prolife organization, spoke to the grief borne by the fathers of aborted children. “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. Bowman noted, “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.”

LifeNews.com: Matt 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.”

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.”

U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Labor, and Pensions (May 11, 2011): Sen. Rand Paul has a brief discussion of the Hyde Amendment in the video starting at 79:55 mins. He cites the Alliance Defense Fund for the proposition that abortions are being performed with federal funding at “community health centers. ” ADF attorney Matt Bowman authored the document that Sen. Paul asks to insert into the record.

ADF attorney Matt Bowman at Human Events: The American Civil Liberties Union and its “pro-choice” allies want to force all hospitals in the country to perform abortions. They are claiming that a bill being debated in the U.S. House this week should be defeated or amended simply because it shores up existing federal conscience protections. HR3 . . .

ADF attorney Matt Bowman on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the suit challenging NYC’s advertising restrictions on Crisis Pregnancy Care Centers. | MP3 audio 12:49 mins

Chuck Colson writes at the Florida Baptist Witness: When the story hit the press, Vanderbilt’s medical center spokesman John Howser claimed the Alliance Defense Fund misunderstood the policy. For years, Howser said, a policy excusing students from participating in abortions has been in place. But Matt Bowman of the ADF said Vanderbilt was “being duplicitous by talking about the wrong policy.” The application for the women’s health track in the school’s residency program “specifically require[d] applicants to promise to assist in abortions,” he noted.

ADF attorney Matt Bowman appeared on KFUO with Roland Lettner to discuss this: New York City sued over law targeting pregnancy care centers. | MP3 audio 23:50 mins

LifeNews: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman, earlier this week, 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.”

One News Now: This is an attack on pregnancy centers by the city council of New York City, who were working together with political allies of the abortion industry to actually regulate pro-life pregnancy centers and impose fines and penalties on them,” says Bowman. [more quotes by Matt Bowman]

Michael Foust writes at Baptist Press: Matt Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, told Baptist Press that pro-choicers want to “shut down the real help and hope that pregnancy centers offer women.” ADF, a pro-life legal group, filed a suit against New York March 18. “There’s not any question that crisis pregnancy centers are being targeted,” Bowman told Baptist Press. “You can read the pamphlets from the abortion movement targeting them. It’s not hidden. I think these attacks on pregnancy centers are an attempt to distract from the growing national scandals in the abortion industry and to give women fewer choices when they experience an unexpected pregnancy.”

LifeSiteNews: The lawsuit filed by the Alliance Defense Fund is in response to Bill 371-A, which was signed into law by Mayor Michael Bloomberg last Wednesday . . . “At a time when New Yorkers believe the city’s abortion ratio to be too high, it’s absurd to see the city work with pro-abortion groups to ensure that the public is ‘protected’ from the ‘threat’ of these compassionate, caring, nonprofit groups that exist specifically because they oppose harm to women and their babies,” said Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).

National Right to Life News: The suit was brought by Centro Tepeyac Women’s Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. It is one of four of what are called “limited-service pregnancy centers” affected by the law. The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) sued on behalf of the Center on First Amendment freedom of speech grounds. “We will show that the county has no facts to justify the idea that any signs are needed except the ideological complaints of abortion activists,” Matt Bowman, an ADF attorney, told the Gazette newspaper. “There are no facts, no examples of a pregnancy center doing anything but offering real help to women.”

CNA: Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said pregnancy centers were being “punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” for their work on behalf of women and children. “Attacks on pregnancy centers are an ideologically motivated attempt to distract from the growing national scandals in the abortion industry,” said Bowman. “For years, abortionists have preyed on women and girls for profit. Now pro-abortion politicians are trying to give women fewer choices.” “At a time when New Yorkers believe the city’s abortion ratio to be too high,” he stated, “it’s absurd to see the city work with pro-abortion groups to ensure that the public is ‘protected’ from the ‘threat’ of these compassionate, caring, nonprofit groups.”

Life News: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman 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.”

Gazette.net: Matt Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, said he believed the pregnancy center would prevail. “We will show that the county has no facts to justify the idea that any signs are needed except the ideological complaints of abortion activists,” he said. “There are no facts, no examples of a pregnancy center doing anything but offering real help to women.”

Washington Examiner: “The First Amendment prevents the government from compelling people to speak the government’s message,” said Matt Bowman, a lawyer for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit. “That message was an attempt to force pregnancy centers to tell women to go somewhere else.” Lawyers from the Alliance Defense Fund challenged the law on behalf of Centro Tepeyac, a Silver Spring pregnancy clinic, which does not provide birth control or abortions. Bowman says the law targets pro-life organizations and infringes upon their First Amendment rights.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/maryland/2011/03/judge-halts-montgomery-pregnancy-center-law#ixzz1GsLt7YQd

Daily Record: Chasanow barred Montgomery from enforcing that second requirement pending the outcome of the lawsuit brought by Centro Tepeyac, a Limited Service Pregnancy Resource Center in Silver Spring. The Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life litigation group that is representing Centro Tepeyac, said the court “did the right thing.” “The First Amendment does not have an abortion exception to it,” ADF attorney Matt Bowman said. “Cities and counties cannot take over the walls of pro-life pregnancy centers and require them to tell women that they should go elsewhere.”

Most of a Montgomery County law forcing pro-life pregnancy counselors to advise women against using their services was put on hold Tuesday by a federal court while a lawsuit against the ordinance moves forward. Alliance Defense Fund attorneys represent a Silver Spring pregnancy resource center in the lawsuit against the county.

Charisma: The two situations cited in the letter involve clients represented by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). “Medical professionals should not be punished for holding to their beliefs, and they should not be forced to perform abortions against their conscience,” says ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Members of the House are justified in asking why the Obama administration would be seeking to repeal such protections, especially in light of the recent examples of abuse involving ADF clients.”

ADF attorney Matt Bowman writes at LifeNews: “Would it surprise anyone to find out that left-wing extremists believe that religious hospitals must perform abortions? This is what the ACLU has been trying to convince people to believe in its recent press releases. The latest attempt was the organization’s recent opposition to the Protect Life Act, H.R. 358, which protects conscience rights of pro-life health care providers.”

ADF attorney Matt Bowman writes at the Washington Examiner: Would it surprise anyone to find out that left-wing extremists believe that religious hospitals must perform abortions? This is what the ACLU has been trying to convince people to believe in its recent press releases. The latest attempt was the organization’s recent opposition to the Protect Life Act, H.R. 358, which protects conscience rights of pro-life health care providers.

LittleNeck.Patch.com: There is no abortion exception to the First Amendment. And the Baltimore case shows that the government cannot compel speech because people want to talk about pregnancy from a pro-life perspective,” said Matt Bowman, legal consul at the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance Defense Fund. Bowman stopped just shot of a promise of legal action if the bill was passed today by the City Council. “We are prepared to bring legal action to protect pro-life pregnancy centers in New York City, just as we have done across the country,” he said.

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss recent Department of Health and Human Services rules that undermine the conscience rights of healthcare providers.  | MP3 audio 12:18 mins | Related ADF Media

World Mag: . . . The changes do not go as far as the administration originally intended or as conservatives feared: wiping out protections in their entirety. But, according to Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, it “leaves the how and if of enforcement of conscience protections completely under the discretion of an agency which says it agrees with Planned Parenthood.”

ADF attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Mary Reichard Show to discuss rights of conscience litigation for healthcare workers. | MP3 audio 21:03 mins

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Mr. Wenger, along with Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, sought a redacted version of the case file so they could prepare their Supreme Court brief, but the request was denied. Still, they maintain that Judge Ignelzi considered all the facts and made an informed decision. “Whatever went into the judge’s decision, we can be sure it was a weighing of testimony and facts about the maturity, health and safety of letting the minor undergo a secret abortion without her parents’ knowledge,” said Mr. Bowman, “and the law of Pennsylvania defers to the judge who decides to protect her by involving her parent.”

One News Now (includes photo of Matt): Matt Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, applauds lawmakers’ desire to see those laws enforced, not repealed. “It’s right for the members of the United States House to be concerned that the administration of the federal government would decide not to enforce those laws,” says Bowman, “especially in light of the fact that the Alliance Defense Fund has represented already three clients in…the last year who have faith violations of these federal conscience laws.”

Charisma Online (includes photo of Matt Bowman): “Medical professionals should not be punished for holding to their beliefs, and they should not be forced to perform abortions against their conscience,” says ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Members of the House are justified in asking why the Obama administration would be seeking to repeal such protections, especially in light of the recent examples of abuse involving ADF clients.”

Christian Post: One of the two cases cited in the letter was that of registered New York nurse Catherina DeCarlo. DeCarlo alleged that she was forced by Mt. Sinai Hospital to participate in the abortion of an unborn baby against her moral and religious conscience. The other case was that of two nursing students who were being required to sign a letter committing to assisting in abortions in order to be considered for Vanderbilt University’s obstetrical and gynecological care program. Alliance Defense Fund served as legal counsel in both cases. “Medical professionals should not be punished for holding to their beliefs, and they should not be forced to perform abortions against their conscience,” commented Matt Bowman, ADF legal counsel.

LifeSite News: Defending the law are the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorneys, along with Americans United for Life and ADF-allied attorney Randall Wenger, who submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court at the end of December. Backing ADF are the Pennsylvania Family Institute, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, and nearly 70 state legislators who support the law . . . “Parents should have a right to be involved in their child’s critical life-changing decisions, and that includes abortions,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Secret abortions performed on minors leave children in the hands of a predatory abortion industry that has put profits above parents’ rights and the health and safety of young girls and their preborn children.”

LifeNews: 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.” Bowman added [in a post at Catholic Vote] . . .

National Catholic Register: “Pro-life medical and nursing students across the country say they face the same pressures to violate their consciences as two recent applicants to Vanderbilt University’s nursing residency program who were told that they would have been required to participate in abortions . . . ‘This was a blatant violation of a federal law, commonly known as the Church Amendment, which was passed by Congress in the 1970s, that said health-care personnel and medical students cannot be forced to assist or participate in an abortion,’ said [Matt Bowman], an Alliance Defense Fund attorney who handled the complaint on behalf of the Vanderbilt students.”

Tom Strode reports at Baptist Press: “A Kentucky court ruling could make the state a popular destination for pregnant teenagers who seek abortions without their parents’ knowledge . . . ADF legal counsel [Matt Bowman] said in a written statement, ‘Christians and other pro-life members of the medical community shouldn’t be forced to participate in abortions to pursue their profession. That’s what federal law says, and that’s why Vanderbilt is doing the right thing in changing its policy and application.’”

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss this: Vanderbilt University abandons illegal policy that forced nursing residents to sign abortion pledge. | MP3 audio 17:12 mins

The New American: “On Wednesday, January 12, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee changed its policy for nurse residency applications, one day after the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) on behalf of a nursing student opposed to VU requirements that nursing residents participate in abortions.”

The Atantic Wire: Here’s how the Alliance Defense Fund’s lawyer, Mathew S. Bowman, argues the position: “Vanderbilt University assumed a public trust when it received what now amounts to billions in federal health dollars. Its blatant discrimination against nurses who wish to practice in labor and delivery or obstetrical and gynecological care is exactly the kind of insidious behavior the Church amendment was written to prevent 30 years ago. If the Church amendment is not enforced, pregnant women patients who value their babies will be deprived of access to nurses who share their value for life, because no such nurses will be able to graduate, be hired and licensed, and pursue careers.”

ADF attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Talk from the Heart with Rich Buhler to discuss this: Vanderbilt University abandons illegal policy that forced nursing residents to sign abortion pledge. | MP3 audio 13:46

World Net Daily: “Christians and other pro-life members of the medical community shouldn’t be forced to participate in abortions to pursue their profession. That’s what federal law says, and that’s why Vanderbilt is doing the right thing in changing its policy and application,” ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman said in a statement today. “We will be monitoring the situation to make sure the university continues to comply with the law. It’s ironic that Vanderbilt changed its policy one day after denying that it required the pledge,” he said.

Christian Post: “A nursing student has partnered with a Christian legal defense group in filing a complaint against a Nashville, Tenn., university policy that requires participation in abortion procedures in order to enter its nurse residency program . . . ‘Christians and other pro-life members of the medical community shouldn’t be forced to participate in abortions to pursue their profession,’ said ADF Legal Counsel [Matt Bowman].”

ADF attorney Casey Mattox writing at Speak Up Movement / University: ADF has today filed a formal complaint with the Department of Health & Human Services, asking it to enforce federal law and prohibit Vanderbilt from illegally discriminating against our client, a well qualified nursing student who happens also to be pro-life and unwilling to violate her conscience by assisting in abortions . . . Vanderbilt promised to comply with the Church Amendments, but it is blatantly breaking that promise.  ADF’s complaint, filed by my colleague Matt Bowman, asks HHS to inform us by January 26 (the effective deadline to apply to the program) if it will enforce the law and defend our client’s rights of conscience or permit Vanderbilt to violate federal law and its agreement with the taxpayers by barring the door to pro-life applicants.”

ADF attorney Matt Bowman appeared with Roland Lettner  on KFUO to discuss this: ADF attorneys, pro-life groups: Parental involvement more needed for abortions than for body piercings.  | MP3 audio 23:15 mins

Tennessean: “Christians and other pro-life members of the medical community shouldn’t be forced to participate in abortions to pursue their profession,” Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said in a news release.

LifeNews: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman commented on the case and said, “Christians and other pro-life members of the medical community shouldn’t be forced to participate in abortions to pursue their profession.” “People enter the medical profession to protect and heal the helpless. Federal law protects them from being required to kill the helpless. The law clearly states that grant recipients cannot accept taxpayer dollars and require health care workers to participate in abortions, which is precisely what Vanderbilt is doing,” Bowman added.

ADF attorney Matt Bowman writes at National Review Bench Memos: “It’s hard to describe the virtues of Chief Judge John Roll without making him sound too good to be true. I think that’s because he really was as good as all of us wish we could be, but know we so often aren’t. I would say he displayed “heroic” virtue — not necessarily heroic in the dramatic sense, but in the much more difficult sense of living excellence in every hour throughout each day with everyone he encountered.”

WTRF 7 (includes video): “I was shocked,” said Matt Bowman. “I was hoping the news was wrong. I was thinking about his family and his courtroom family, as well, and how much grief they must be going through right now. Judge Roll was really an ideal employer. He was a mentor, he was kind and caring and funny.” Currently, Matt serves as legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, engaging in full-time pro-life, pro-family and religious freedom litigation.

ADF attorney Matt Bowman writing at CatholicVote.org: “Judge Roll hired me in 2003 fresh out of the first class of Ave Maria School of Law to work in his chambers as a law clerk. I found him among the judges I applied to work for because he listed Knights of Columbus in his biography . . . For what it’s worth, I believe Judge Roll displayed literally heroic virtue in his serving of God in his profession and his consistent, daily display of care and courtesy for the value of every person he encountered. Judge Roll lived his life’s vocation in a way truly worthy of comparison to Saint Thomas More’s daily example.”

Fox News: “Washington D.C. lawyer [Matt Bowman] did a two-year clerkship for Roll from 2003-2005. He applied on the hope that their common membership in the Knights of Columbus might work to his advantage. They first met during Bowman’s job interview . . . Bowman called Roll an excellent lawyer but more importantly, ‘a Christian, husband and father.’”

OneNewsNow: “‘We’re in this case to uphold the right of parents to protect their children from being victimized by the abortion industry that profits in that and tries to have secret abortions on minors,’ explains ADF attorney [Matt Bowman].”

Charisma: “Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorneys, along with Americans United for Life and ADF-allied attorney Randall Wenger, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the first-ever review of a law requiring parental consent for a minor’s abortion . . . ‘Parents should have a right to be involved in their child’s critical life-changing decisions, and that includes abortions,’ says ADF Legal Counsel [Matt Bowman].”

LifeNews: “Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund and Americans United for Life submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the first-ever review of that court of the pro-life law . . . ‘Parents should have a right to be involved in their child’s critical life-changing decisions, and that includes abortions,’ ADF Legal Counsel [Matt Bowman] told LifeNews.com today. ‘Secret abortions performed on minors leave children in the hands of a predatory abortion industry that has put profits above parents’ rights and the health and safety of young girls and their preborn children.’”

The New American: “ADF legal counsel [Matt Bowman] said that ‘Christians and other pro-life medical students and staff shouldn’t be forced to compromise their beliefs to maintain their professions,’ adding that UWHC and its partners ‘made the right decision to terminate this covert program, which threatened to require pro-life employees to participate, against their conscience, in the killing of preborn, developed babies.’”

ADF President and CEO Alan Sears writing at Inside the Issues: “Call it a ‘two-fer’: a long-awaited decision out of Wisconsin last week that scored a major victory for both the sanctity of life and religious freedom – specifically, the right of medical workers to honor their conscience.”

WorldNetDaily: “Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio Region violated a state law requiring ‘informed consent’ before performing an abortion on a 14-year-old girl in March 2004, according to an Ohio court . . . ‘The court made the right decision at this point in the case, and we look forward to ultimate success once the trial is over,’ said Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel [Matt Bowman] in the news release.”

In May, the Alliance Defense Fund obtained a letter from the Wisconsin Department of Justice stating that the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics had stopped pursuing the plan, but UWHC then made public comments that indicated they weren’t fully giving up at that time, despite public pressure brought to bear by ADF and its allies.

LifeNews: “The Obama administration is still working to overturn conscience rights for medical professionals on abortion that were put in place at the tail end of the Bush administration . . . ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman said the Obama administration ‘wants to dismantle’ the conscience protections ‘leaving little defense for the regulation and for health care workers.’”

OneNewsNow: “‘A court in Ohio ruled that Planned Parenthood cannot jeopardize the safety and health of young girls by putting their desire to perform an abortion over the interest of those girls,’ reports Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney [Matt Bowman]. The abortion chain is required by state law to ‘check and make sure that this girl isn’t a subject of rape and isn’t being brought in by her rapist boyfriend.’”

A New York nurse who filed suit after being forced against her conscience to participate in an abortion is now seeking to intervene in a separate lawsuit that aims to tear down the only federal regulation that protects her federal conscience rights.

“A Hamilton County court determined Tuesday that Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio Region violated a state ‘informed consent’ law when it failed to meet with a 14-year-old girl at least 24 hours prior to giving her an abortion.”

ADF attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Don Kroah Show to discuss this:  Will DC Circuit allow funding of embryonic stem cell research to go on contrary to law? | MP3 audio 12:42 mins

One News Now: Matt Bowman  an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund . . .  We’re hopeful that the [DC] Court of Appeals will agree with the district court that simply made sure Americans don’t pay any more of their precious taxpayer dollars for needless research…made irrelevant by adult stem cell and other research that actually treats people.” ADF is asking the court to rule that the administration is violating federal law and halt the use of tax money for the research.

LifeNews: Alliance Defense Fund legal counsel Matt Bowman talked with the Christian Post about the case and said that, while it continues, the Obama administration continues to make taxpayers fund embryonic stem cell research. “The government is shoveling tax dollars out the door while it can,” he said. “Americans should not be forced to pay for experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate federal law.” “They focused more on that desire (to explore the alleged benefits of embryonic stem cell research) than the statutes that say taxpayer money should not be spent in this destructive way,” Bowman said of the Obama administration’s attorneys.

Christian Post: The Alliance Defense Fund argued for an injunction on the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Currently, a temporary stay is allowing researchers to receive federal grants to fund research using embryonic stem cells.
ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman says the Obama administration is taking full advantage of the stay.“The government is shoveling tax dollars out the door while it can,” he stated . . .

Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Matt Bowman will be available for media interviews Monday following oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Sherley v. Sebelius.

“Today, the Second Circuit ruled that a private individual does not have a right to sue her employer after being forced to participate in an abortion.”