Tag Archives: Category: Sanctity of Life

LifeNews: “Every American, including family business owners, should be free to live and do business according to their faith,” says ADF lead counsel Matt Bowman. Bowman told LifeNews: “The cost of religious freedom for this family could be millions of dollars per year in fines that would cripple their business and potentially destroy jobs if the administration ultimately has its way. In appealing the district court’s order that halted the mandate against Hercules, the administration sent a clear message that it wants to force families to abandon their faith in order to earn a living. That’s the opposite of religious freedom.”

LifeNews: Cecile Richards, the president of the nation’s biggest abortion business, joined President Barack Obama at the pre-inaugural church service today. Richards was so excited about being with the pro-abortion president, she Tweeted about it.

The 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade will draw thousands to the nation’s capital, including activists, lawyers, and journalists. The Law of Life Summit “3,” hosted by the Ave Maria School of Law, will be “Calling Out the Media!” on Thursday, January 24, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Washington DC’s Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill.

LifeNews: A formal complaint has been filed with the City of Wichita against Julie Burkhart and two associated business entities, which presents evidence that remodeling and other work is taking place illegally at a proposed new abortion clinic in Wichita without the proper permits. The complaint requests that an infraction notice be filed and a cease and desist order be issued to halt all construction at the building.

KWGN.com: Among a slew of new bills introduced in the state senate Wednesday is a measure from senate Republicans that seeks to ban abortion for purposes of gender selection.

Kansas City Star: The former Wichita clinic of slain abortion provider George Tiller is expected to open in the next few months with one full-time and two part-time doctors amid heightened security and community outreach efforts, its new owners said.

Lansing State Journal: Lawmakers have reintroduced a proposed overhaul of the state’s largest health insurer, this time without the “objectionable language” that led Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to veto the first package that cleared the Legislature last month.

AP: A Virginia Senate Committee killed a bid to prevent Medicaid patients from having abortions when doctors determine the fetus has profound deformities that make survival unlikely.

LifeNews: A new report from Americans United for Life, that monitors changes to pro-life laws on abortion and bioethics and end-of-life issues named Louisiana the most pro-life state in the nation. Washington state came in at the bottom of the list of 50 states on abortion.

AZ Central: Despite winning many battles over the past four decades, anti-abortion forces may be losing the war.

Matt Bowman on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the Sioux Chief Manufacturing suit and others. | MP3 audio 5:23 mins

Christian Post: Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish. Regrettably, the administration does not want religious freedom to stand in the way of imposing ObamaCare,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman commented in an email to The Christian Post.

Business Week: Taking a less-hostile tone on abortion and gay rights and reducing the number of primary debates are among the steps the Republican Party could make to become more competitive in national elections, said Henry Barbour, a party leader. The nephew of former Mississippi governor and one-time Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour . . .

Valerie Tarico at Truth-Out.org: In the end the real morality of our position lies in the right of babies to be truly loved and wanted and in the right of parents to bring babies into this world when they’re fully ready to welcome them with open arms. As my friend Patricia said, every baby should have its toes kissed. Her simple message speaks volumes. Parents who get to plan and choose are more likely to eagerly await that toe kissing.

KWGN.com: Among a slew of new bills introduced in the state senate Wednesday is a measure from senate Republicans that seeks to ban abortion for purposes of gender selection.

BlackHIllsFox.com: Wyoming lawmakers are facing bills this session that would restrict access to abortion services. Meanwhile, a group is capitalizing on the legal victory it won against the state last year that allows it to display an anti-abortion poster in a tunnel leading to the state Capitol.

Reuters: The poll by the Pew Research Center found that 63 percent of Americans believe that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned, compared to 29 percent who believe it should be. These opinions have changed little from surveys conducted in 2003 and 1992, Pew reported.

LifeSiteNews: Coalition leaders, including the Rev. Walter Hoye, met last week in Washington to discuss their strategy for the coming year. Rev. Hoye told LifeSiteNews that conventional pro-life tactics aimed at white voters were “developed for the courtroom, not the culture” and don’t work well with the black community.

Investor’s Business Daily: In 1970, children made up 33% of California’s population, a number that’s expected to shrink to just over a fifth by 2030, a report by the University of Southern California and the Lucile Packard Foundation shows. That year California averaged about 21 seniors per 100 working age adults. By 2030, that number is predicted to rise to 36% of working age adults . . . The state’s birthrate fell to 1.94 children per woman in 2010, below the replacement level of 2.1 children, according to the study, and lower than the overall U.S. rate of 2.06 children in 2012.

One News Now: “The Constitution doesn’t allow the government to decide what faith is, who the faithful are, or even where they exercise that faith,” contends ADF attorney Kevin Theriot. “It’s not the job of Washington bureaucrats to confine faith to inside homes or inside churches. Faith and religious freedom [are] God-given, not government-driven.”

Ken Connor at Townhall: The reality is that abortion is big business for Planned Parenthood, and Uncle Sam continues to be a complicit financier of the organization’s ghoulish practices. In 2011, Planned Parenthood performed 333,964 abortions, up from 329,445 the year before. The federal government provided the organization with $542.4 million dollars in funding, which is nearly half of Planned Parenthood’s budget.

BizJournals.com: The story, written by The Alliance Defending Freedom on LifeSiteNews.com here www.lifesitenews.com/news/they-said-no-what-happened-when-12-nurses-refused-to-participate-in-abortio/ , introduces a tight-knit group of coworkers who enjoy helping people every day . . . With a little help from lawyers at ADF working in a pro-bono capacity, a court hearing was scheduled to challenge hospital officials regarding the right and legality to force these nurses to perform such work in non-emergency elective circumstances. The case eventually settled though, with a victory for the nurses. “We had gotten everything (the 12 nurses) requested,” Demetrios Stratis, their representing attorney, says. “We’d gotten the hospital to agree not to force them to perform these abortions.” [more]

Life News: “Americans should be free to honor God and live according to their consciences wherever they are,” said lead counsel Jonathan R. Whitehead, one of nearly 2,200 allied attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom. “They have the God-given freedom to live and transact business according to their faith, and the First Amendment has always protected that. Forcing Americans to ignore their faith just to earn a living is unprecedented, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.”

Christian Post:
“Americans should be free to honor God and abide by their consciences at work, home, and church,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Washington politicians can’t confine our faith to the four walls of our homes and churches alone. Honoring God is important every day, in all areas of life, including in our work. The Obama administration’s attacks on faith and business prove that it doesn’t respect either one.”. . . “It is quite a challenge to keep track of the large and growing number of legal challenges to the HHS contraceptive/abortifacient mandate,” ADF Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor states in the group’s scorecard post on its website. “Religious organizations, for-profit businesses, and individuals have filed over 40 cases, attempting to protect their deeply held religious beliefs and exercise from the unconstitutional dictates of the federal government.”

LifeNews: President Barack Obama declared today Religious Freedom Day as his administration is working overtime to deny religious freedom to pro-life Americans who do not want their companies, schools or businesses to pay for drugs that may cause abortions.

LifeNews: Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman emailed LifeNews regarding the decision of the Obama administration Tuesday to continue trying to force the Bible publisher to act contrary to its religious beliefs in Tyndale House Publishers v. Sebelius: “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish. Regrettably, the administration does not want religious freedom to stand in the way of imposing ObamaCare. The district court rightly halted ObamaCare’s abortion pill mandate against Tyndale House, but the administration continues to argue that a Bible publisher isn’t religious enough to qualify as a religious employer. For the government to say that a Bible publisher isn’t religious is startling. We will continue to argue on appeal that the administration cannot disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom to achieve certain political purposes.”

Bloomberg: Tyndale argues the law violates the religious freedoms of the company and its owners, “who are committed to biblical principles including the belief that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God from the moment of their conception.” “It’s disturbing that the government would appeal in order to argue that a Bible publisher is not religious,” Matthew Bowman, a lawyer from Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Tyndale and other businesses challenging the health care law.

Lawrence M. Vance at Future of Freedom Foundation: According to Planned Parenthood’s latest report, the organization received $542.4 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements,” including “payments from Medicaid managed care plans.” Yet the report also states that Planned Parenthood performed 333,964 abortions in 2011. But Planned Parenthood could not have received a dime of taxpayer money unless Republicans in the House — who play the pro-life card at every election — voted for the funding. They were, after all, in the majority.

Business Week: “It’s disturbing that the government would appeal in order to argue that a Bible publisher is not religious,” Matthew Bowman, a lawyer from Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Tyndale and other businesses challenging the health care law.

Citizen Link: Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed the suit on behalf of Sioux Chief Manufacturing, a Catholic-owned business in Peculiar, Mo. “Americans should be free to honor God and live according to their consciences wherever they are,” said ADF Lead Counsel Jonathan Whitehead. “They have God-given freedom to live and transact business according to their faith, and the First Amendment has always protected that.”

One News Now: Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, says the government should not force Tyndale House Publishers to violate its Christian beliefs — and that it should be eligible for a religious exemption from providing contraceptives it believes cause abortion. “What [the administration is] doing in this appeal is they are arguing that Bible publishers are not even free to do business according to the book that they publish,” says the attorney. “The administration is arguing that a Bible publisher isn’t even religious enough to qualify as a religious employer.” [more]

Religion Clause Blog: The complaint (full text) in Sioux Chief Mfg. Co., Inc. v . Sebelius, (WD MO, filed 1/14/2013), contends that the mandate violates plaintiffs’ rights under the 1st and 5th Amendments, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.  Alliance Defending Freedom issued a press release announcing the filing of the case.

“For the government to say that a Bible publisher isn’t religious is startling. We will continue to argue on appeal that the administration cannot disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom to achieve certain political purposes.”

LifeNews: As a result, the number of U.S. infant adoptions (about 90,000 in 1971) has fallen from 22,291 in 2002 to 18,078 in 2007, according to the most recent five-year tally from the private National Council for Adoption.

San Francisco Chronicle: Abortion foes, coming off a successful ballot initiative campaign requiring parental notification before teens undergo the procedure, launched into their legislative requests Tuesday with a renewed proposal to criminalize the killing of a fetus.

Judge Halts Illinois Mandate of Contraceptives and Abortifacients Coverage in HHS Lawsuit Thomas More Society Says Triune Health Group’s Religious Liberty Protected WHEATON, Ill., Jan. 15, 2013 / Today, Judge Terence M. Sheen of the DuPage County Circuit Court granted …

LifeNews: The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi, failed to meet a Friday deadline for compliance with a new law that requires abortionists to maintain local hospital privileges.

TIME: Until late last week one of Europe’s most progressive nations had one of the continent’s most repressive policies on transgender people. Swedish law had required all transgender people to undergo sterilization if they want to legally change their sex.

LifeNews: Enroll America, a newly formed advocacy group run by supporters of Obamacare, announced a new campaign today to sign up people for the government-run health care plan that contains no safeguards preventing taxpayer dollars from paying for abortions or going to abortion companies like Planned Parenthood.

Breakpoint Radio (links to audio – 25:30 mins): John Stonestreet interviews Matt Bowman and Emily Hardman, two experts on the front line of the fight for religious liberty.

Adam McLeod at Public Discourse: To its detriment, Howard Ball’s new book on end-of-life law focuses more on the emotions and biases of the law’s defenders than on law’s history and content.

A Missouri-based plumbing products manufacturer is the latest company to challenge the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate in court.

Steve Aden at Townhall: But no matter how many times Planned Parenthood repeats their “Big Lie,” there’s a problem they can’t sweep under the rug with soothing rhetoric: taking life is not part of promoting health.

Ed Whelan at National Review: Last Friday, in Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, federal district judge Mitchell S. Goldberg joined the minority of courts that have denied injunctive relief to the owners of for-profit businesses that have religious objections to complying with the HHS mandate.

LifeNews: Everyday more the collective mindset of “rights” gains ground in this country. We see sophisticated advertisements on all media for a myriad of issues – from animal rights to gay rights, from the right to bear arms to women’s reproductive rights. It’s the catchiest of all catch phrases – our rights. Forty years ago, however, the Supreme Court opined that men have zero reproductive rights – none what so ever.

WGRZ.com: More than 400 people swathed in pink rallied for women’s rights near the Capitol on Monday, with state leaders speaking in support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s legislative package addressing gender equality. The 10-point plan Cuomo unveiled during his State of the State last week centers around the Reproductive Health Act, a bill that would cofidy women’s abortion rights.

LifeNews: Leading pro-life groups are continuing their pushback against a move by pro-abortion Democrats in the Senate to kill the filibuster. If Harry Reid and his colleagues are successful, it would pave the way for President Barack Obama’s abortion agenda, they fear.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) recently introduced the “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act” which would prohibit groups that perform or refer for abortion from receiving Title X funding. In 2010 that figure to Planned Parenthood from the Department of Health and Human Services was $340 million.

Findlaw: The First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a third challenge to the Massachusetts abortion clinic buffer zone law this week, calling the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims a “salmagundi of arguments, old and new.” The statute at the center of the dispute is Mass. Gen. Law ch. 266, § 120E 1/2, which states that “no person shall knowingly enter or remain on a public way or sidewalk adjacent to a reproductive health care facility” (RHCF) within a designated and clearly marked buffer zone.

San Francisco Chronicle: In the most important ruling to date, a federal appeals court in Chicago has blocked enforcement of the mandate against an employer – not a church or a church-affiliated hospital or university, but an Illinois construction company whose principal owners, a married couple, are devout Catholics.

LifeNews: A pro-life elderly woman has been arrested for sprinkling Holy Water on a public sidewalk outside the local abortion business in Huntsville, Alabama.

Religion Clause Blog: In Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, (ED PA, Jan 11, 2013), a Pennsylvania federal district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage Mandate in a suit brought by a small wood specialties manufacturing company and its five Mennonite Christian owners (the Hahn family).

NY Daily News: Responding to Gov. Cuomo’s renewed call for passage of the Reproductive Health Act — which would strengthen the legal right to an abortion in New York — Timothy Cardinal Dolan raised an excellent question: Whatever happened to the important goal — advanced by President Bill Clinton and embraced by many on the pro-choice side — of seeking to make abortion “safe, legal and rare”?

Religion Clause Blog: As reported by CNN, in statement from its general counsel Hobby Lobby says it has shifted the beginning of its health care plan year, thus delaying for several months the requirement that it comply with the Women’s Preventive Services coverage mandate.

Amidst a flurry of activity this month in Alliance Defending Freedom lawsuits against President Obama’s abortion pill mandate, the administration’s record in cases litigated so far stands at 10 losses and only four wins.

AL.com: Today’s ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that the state’s chemical endangerment of a child law also includes protection for unborn children is a landmark victory, said Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange. | In re: Ankrom v. State of Alabama

World Magazine: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys who argued on behalf of the two researchers said the success of adult stem cell research has made federally funded research on embryonic stem cells “irrelevant.”

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News: “Congress designed a law to ensure that Americans don’t pay any more precious taxpayer dollars for needless research made irrelevant by adult stem cell and other research. That law is clear, and we had hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold its clear intent,” Steven H. Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which co-litigated the case for Drs. Sherley and Deisher. “Americans should not be forced to pay for experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate federal law—especially in burdened fiscal times like these.”

Baptist Press: “Americans should not be forced to pay for experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate federal law — especially in burdened fiscal times like these,” said Steven H. Aden, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which helped litigate the case against the Obama administration. “Congress designed a law to ensure that Americans don’t pay any more precious taxpayer dollars for needless research made irrelevant by adult stem cell and other research,” Aden said in a news release. “That law is clear, and we had hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold its clear intent.”

Cheryl Wetzstein at Washington Times: Congress passed legislation in 1996 “to ensure that Americans don’t pay any more precious taxpayer dollars for needless research made irrelevant by adult stem-cell and other research,” said Steven H. Aden, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). “We had hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold [the law’s] clear intent.” ADF was one of the legal-defense groups representing plaintiffs Dr. James L. Sherley and Theresa Deisher, both scientists whose research uses only adult stem cells.

The HIll: “Americans should not be forced to pay for experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate federal law — especially in burdened fiscal times like these,” said Steven Aden, senior counsel for The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian group that helped bring the case. “Congress designed a law to ensure that Americans don’t pay any more precious taxpayer dollars for needless research made irrelevant by adult stem cell and other research. That law is clear, and we had hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold its clear intent.”

World Magazine: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, who argued on behalf of the two researchers, said the success of adult stem cell research has made research on embryonic stem cells “irrelevant.” . . . The Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys challenging that policy on behalf of the two scientists argued that the guidelines gave incentive to destroy embryos, thus violating Dickey-Wicker. They also argued that the line between those destroying the embryos and the federal researchers using the destroyed embryos was fuzzy. But the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court rejected those arguments.

NBC: Steven Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal center that helped litigate the case, criticized the decision Monday, saying the 1996 law “is clear, and we had hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold its clear intent.” “Americans should not be forced to pay for experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments and violate federal law — especially in burdened fiscal times like these,” he said.

Christian Newswire: Today, on behalf of the adult stem researchers it represents, the Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project and their co-counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, expressed great disappointment that the United State Supreme Court declined to hear their petition for certiorari.

Gary Bauer at Human Events: More and more political analysts and weak-kneed politicians are advising the historically pro-life Republican Party to abandon its pro-life stance for political gain. My first response is that if you cannot trust a party on the value of defending human life, how can you trust it on issues like marginal tax rates. Still, consider this: A common but bogus attack on the GOP is that it rejects science. Notice I said bogus. Isn’t it ironic that just as science is proving the humanity of the unborn child some in the party of Lincoln are tempted to abandon the most defenseless Americans of all?

CNN: An anti-abortion group will not get a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court on its appeal of federal law designating it as a political nonprofit that must disclose information about its financial donors.

LifeSiteNews reports.

Wesley Smith at National Review: Decadence is on the march! And now, a defense of pedophilia as just another “sexual orientation” has been published in the mainstream left wing UK newspaper The Guardian. From, “Paedophilia: Bringing Dark Desires Into the Light:” . . .

The Hill: U.S. District Judge Robert L. Miller wrote Monday that Notre Dame’s claims of injury are not ripe and that the school does not have standing to bring them.

AP: Kansas’ law that restricts private health insurance coverage for abortions will go to trial to resolve whether it poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking to end pregnancies, a federal judge ruled Monday.

WBTW.com: The state of North Carolina is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that it can’t offer anti-abortion license plates unless it also makes plates available for people who support abortion rights.

LifeNews: The new report released by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) shows the abortion giant did a record 333,964 abortions on unborn children during the 2011-2012 fiscal year. Those abortions were estimated to have generated $150 million dollars for the “nonprofit” organization.

LifeNews: Thomas G. Hungar, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, which includes the Alliance Defense Fund and the Christian Medical Association, said in 2009 when the lawsuit was filed, “the language of the [Dickey-Wicker] statute is clear” that it “bans public funding for any research that leads to the destruction of human embryos.” . . . Sam Casey, General Counsel of Advocates International’s Law of Life Project, a public interest legal project involved in the case, pointed out that NIH officials have admitted they violated the public comment process by ignoring the majority of comments coming from pro-life advocates opposed to destroying unborn children for their stem cells.

“Americans should not be forced to pay for experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate federal law–especially in burdened fiscal times like these. Congress designed a law to ensure that Americans don’t pay any more precious taxpayer dollars for needless research made irrelevant by adult stem cell and other research. That law is clear, and we had hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold its clear intent.”