Tag Archives: Group: Americans United for Life (AUL)

Missouri Family Policy Council: “All Americans, not just those in church organizations, are guaranteed freedom of conscience in their daily lives and in their work,” commented Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom. “The government has no business putting religious freedom on the negotiating table, or picking and choosing who is allowed to exercise their faith.”

LifeNews: Americans United for Life (AUL) filed a brief today in Nebraska v. Health and Human Services, a case initiated by the state of Nebraska and six other states challenging the Obama Administration’s “HHS Mandate,” which requires that employers provide insurance coverage for all forms of FDA-approved “contraception,” including life-ending drugs and devices classified as “emergency contraception.”

Washington Post: Paul Ryan is known around Washington as a budget wonk, the Republican legislator with big economic ideas. Antiabortion groups see something else in Romney’s vice presidential pick: a stalwart opponent of abortion rights.

Clark D. Forsythe at National Review: Twenty years ago today, on Monday, June 29, 1992, the Supreme Court handed down their decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a tragic mistake in the view of pro-life Americans because it failed to overturn Roe v. Wade. But the whole story is far more complex.

The Daily Beast: Keith Mason and his wife are leading a growing national campaign to legally define human embryos as people, which would outlaw abortion—and possibly some forms of birth control, opponents say. In an exclusive interview, he tells Abigail Pesta about his ambitious plans for 2012′s election season.

Dallas Morning Observer: Americans United For Life, one of the nation’s largest anti-abortion advocacy groups, has released its annual report, Defending Life 2012, complete with an enthusiastic blurb from Governor Rick Perry. On the whole, they seem very pleased with Texas and its “aggressive legislative action” to restrict abortion. Texas, they write, has become “one of the most protective states in the nation.”

Americans United for Life Blog: Forced by a court order, Oregon taxpayers have paid for abortions for women receiving public assistance since 1984.[i] Millions of dollars have been lost to abortion. Since the court’s interference, Oregon has struggled to enact meaningful limitations on abortions, including funding restrictions supported by most taxpayers. One-third of all abortions in Oregon are paid for by taxpayers, according to the Oregon 2012 Petition Committee. From 2003 to 2009, that amounted to $11.1 million in state taxpayer dollars spent on 26,000 abortions. But Oregon taxpayers are fighting back.

Washington Times: Democrats have tried in the past to overturn the 16-year-old ban on military funding for abortion except when the mother’s life is at stake, but the latest attempt picked up some bipartisan traction last week in the Armed Services Committee, with GOP Sens. John McCain, Susan M. Collins and Scott P. Brown signing on.

PR Newswire: In advance of the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Americans United for Life will host a luncheon symposium featuring a panel of legal experts who will discuss the significance of the decision

ProLifeBlogs.com: In advance of a vote today, Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called on members of the U.S. House to support H.R. 3541, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2012, which would prevent killing an unborn child based on his or her sex. While the abortion lobby has denied that sex selection abortion is an issue, a new video released this week from Live Action shows that, even on an issue as extreme as killing a child for being a certain sex, the abortion lobby is glad to oblige. “This is a real war on women,” said Dr. Yoest. “And it is wrong when we turn a blind eye to women being eliminated in the womb simply for being a member of the female sex.”

Edmondsun.com: Grau called the ruling “unprecedented,” and said the judge long-jumped Oklahoma’s right, and a duty, to regulate the use of drugs and medicine within its borders. He compared the issue to the debate surrounding regulation and access to the non-prescription drug pseudoephedrine, a drug used to relieve nasal congestion caused by colds that is also an ingredient used to make meth.

LifeNews: More than 60 GOP members of the House have introduced the Stop Abortion Funding in Multi-state Exchange Plans (SAFE) Act, led by pro-life Rep. Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican . . .

PR Newswire: The Missouri House of Representatives passed a resolution on Wednesday honoring Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest for her “key leadership across the nation in helping to enact life-saving laws at both the beginning and the end of life.”

Daniel McConchie and Mary Harned at the Washington Times: The administration’s health care law permits a state to opt out of allowing health insurance plans that cover abortions to participate in the new health insurance exchanges within that state and thereby prohibit taxpayer money from subsidizing plans that cover abortions. South Dakota recently became the 15th state to enact such a law.

Christianity Today: Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) teamed up with pro-life groups such as Americans United for Life to argue that the act violates the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. The ADF coalition argued that the individual mandate would inhibit religious freedom by “effectively forcing” individuals to pay for an abortion premium because they may be enrolled by their employers in plans that cover abortion. The ADF argued that others may be “forced to choose between insufficient plans that respect their conscience versus other plans that happen to require an abortion premium, but that may otherwise better meet their health needs or their choice of doctor network.”

Oregon Faith Report: Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) allied attorneys with the Seattle law firm Ellis, Li & McKinstry, PLLC, represented pharmacists in the lawsuit, Stormans v. Selecky. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is co-counsel together with ADF, which has provided financial and legal support for the case. Americans should be able to rely on health care providers who have a conscience,” said ADF Senior Counsel Steven Aden. “The court’s decision is a ringing affirmation that conscience and good health care are not only compatible, but inseparable. Allowing pharmacists to exercise their consciences in this way serves both the patients and the pharmacists. It’s a win-win situation.”

AP: When lawmakers take aim at abortion, they draw on an ever-growing arsenal of restrictions and mandates imposed on women, doctors and clinics. But do these measures reduce abortions? It’s a question with no simple answer.

LifeNews: Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Matt Bowman: “The government cannot tell Americans that certain parts of their faith are not important enough to practice. People of faith are explicitly protected by the Constitution and federal law from such radical state invasions of conscience. The Blunt/Fortenberry Amendment was a necessary measure to begin to restore the religious liberties of Americans that ObamaCare has trampled on with its assumption of unlimited bureaucratic power. Every vote for religious freedom should be unanimous, but tragically, our fundamental freedoms didn’t seem to matter to enough senators.”

ADF Attorney Steve Aden appeared on the Victoria Taft Show to discuss the ruling in Stormans v. Selecky. | MP3 audio 7:19 mins

PR Newswire on the Sacramento Bee: Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest announced the pre-release of AUL’s package of strategic, legislative initiatives designed to form the “frontlines of pro-life advances, continuing the momentum of 2011.” AUL serves the community of pro-life lawmakers through the annual release of Defending Life, a guidebook of model legislation, the 7th edition of which will be released in March.

Baptist Press: The Becket Fund and the Alliance Defense Fund represented a pharmacy and two pharmacists in the lawsuit against the state of Washington.

Krystle Weeks at Life News: Clarke Forsythe and Mailee Smith of Americans United for Life recently penned an op-ed in The Washington Times regarding a hearing that will be taking place in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit on Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, a case disputing a South Dakota statute, which was enacted in 2005, that mandates all women receive information of the medical risks of an abortion.

LifeSiteNews: ADF attorney Kirsten Waggoner said that because of the ruling, “Customers will receive prescribed drugs in the most efficient manner possible, while at the same time respecting the conscience rights of pharmacists, who should never be forced to participate in destroying human life just to be able to preserve their professional licenses.”

WorldNetDaily: “No one should be forced to violate their conscience by paying for abortions, but that’s precisely what Obamacare does,” said ADF Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden in a statement. “Obamacare requires that employees enrolled in certain health plans pay a separate insurance premium specifically to pay for other people’s elective abortions and offers no opt-out for religious or moral reasons. Such a mandate cannot survive constitutional scrutiny.”

PR Newswire – sacbee.com: “In Roe, the courts said that abortion was a privacy right. In this health care dictate, the Obama administration announces plans to invade the privacy of women by requiring insurance companies to inquire about their private choices and offer free drugs. And the administration announces that insurance companies will take on this burden at no cost to anyone.

Denise Burke Washington Times: Last year was a bad year for the abortion industry. Each passing month seemed to expose more of the industry’s “dirty laundry” and, in direct response, state legislatures enacted a record number of laws intended to put an end to the tyranny of abortion-on-demand and to the American taxpayers’ unwitting complicity in it.

LifeNews.com: The national pro-life legislative group Americans United for Life has released its seventh annual ranking of states across the country based on the way each deals with a comprehensive list of life issues – from abortion to euthanasia.

LifeNews.com: Missouri lawmakers have introduced legislation which would protect the conscience rights of health care workers and religiously-based health care institutions. The proposals would ensure that physicians and nurses would not face employment discrimination for refusing to participate in medical procedures which violate their religious beliefs.

AUL: Americans United for Life (AUL) filed a brief in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives – including Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner and U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn—supporting Ohio’s commonsense regulation of the dangerous abortion-inducing drug RU-486.

LifeNews.com: Thanks to a recently issued document that analyzes international law, pro-life supporters possess a new and potentially powerful tool to uphold domestic laws protecting unborn human life.

LifeNews.com: This week AUL filed an amicus brief in the Illinois Supreme Court supporting a state law requiring parental notice before minors can obtain abortions.

LifeSiteNews.com: “But fetal homicide laws would have fangs if used against abortionists,” said Americans United for Life’s Clarke Forsythe to me in a phone interview today. “Maryland’s unprecedented application to abortion has the potential to be used more broadly and must be scaring abortion proponents silly.”

LifeNews.com: Former Planned Parenthood abortion facility director Abby Johnson has joined the team at Americans United for Life to help the pro-life legislative and legal group further expose Planned Parenthood.

NYTimes.com: A widening and emotional rift over legal tactics has split the anti-abortion movement, with its longtime leaders facing a Tea Party-like insurrection from many grass-roots activists who are impatient with the pace of change.

LifeNews.com: Last week, Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood abortion business, sent a fundraising plea to the pro-abortion activists that support the organization. She complained the last year has been the “most difficult year in our history.”

The New American: Citing the uncertain economy and the scarcity of needed capital, the company that launched the first government funded embryonic stem-cell trials announced that it is halting further stem-cell research and will lay off nearly 40 percent of its staff. The California-based Geron Corp., which began the first FDA-approved stem-cell trials in 2010, said that it would shift its focus to cancer research.

Bill Saunders and Mary Novick at LifeNews.com: The fight for legal recognition and protection of the unborn child is not fatally diminished by the recent rejection of the Mississippi personhood initiative. In fact, there have been multiple victories for the recognition of the unborn child as a person under the law across the country this year, and there is a winning strategy in place to continue setting legal precedent for personhood.

Human Events: Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said Wednesday that the “long and noble legal precedent for the personhood of unborn children did not suffer harm by the defeat of the ballot initiative in Mississippi. This measure would not have led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but had a symbolic appeal for pro-life Americans. It was not drafted in such a way that it would conflict with Roe.”

AUL: Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said Wednesday that the “long and noble legal precedent for the personhood of unborn children did not suffer harm by the defeat of the ballot initiative in Mississippi. This measure would not have led to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but had a symbolic appeal for pro-life Americans. It was not drafted in such a way that it would conflict with Roe.”

Life News: “Some are concerned about that, but I frankly don’t think it’s a direct challenge to Roe,” Forsythe told Baptist Press. “A direct challenge to Roe would be a criminal prohibition on abortion. This is not a criminal prohibition on abortion.”

The Washington Post: There’s [Marjorie] Dannenfelser. There’s her friend Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, who also has five. There’s Penny Nance, chief executive of Concerned Women for America, with two. (“I feel like an underachiever compared to Marjorie,” she says.) Shannon Royce, president of Chosen Families and Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life, each have two.

The Hill: Groups opposed to abortion rights are pressuring the Senate to act on a bill passed by the House last week that would prohibit health insurers from offering abortion coverage if any of their customers receives federal subsidies.

Americans United for Life: Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest noted that Planned Parenthood’s response to news of a Congressional investigation into its institutional practices and policies and to require an accounting of the more than $360 million it receives in taxpayer funding each year “once again ignored the heart of the issue, which are allegations of the mishandling of the taxpayer trust and taxpayer dollars.”

The Blog of Legal Times: Planned Parenthood has retained lawyers from Hogan Lovells as it prepares to respond to a sweeping new inquiry into how the organization and its affiliates use federal money.

Stateline: Mississippi is among just a handful of states to hold elections this year, and among the items on its ballot will be one that defines “person” to include every human being from the moment of fertilization. If approved, supporters say the measure would criminalize all abortion, including those applying to cases of rape or incest.

The Huffington Post: The states launched an unprecedented avalanche of attacks against Planned Parenthood in their 2011 legislative sessions, but Planned Parenthood is battling back in the courts. Eighteen states have passed one or more measures to limit the services the family planning provider can offer . . .

CSMonitor.com: With an easy laugh and ample charm, Charmaine Yoest doesn’t at all appear to be Public Enemy No. 1 for the pro-abortion rights community. But the foundation of her rising influence – the accessibility of her approach – becomes clear when she settles in for an unexpectedly frank conversation about the stunning 2011 antiabortion legislative juggernaut that she has helped orchestrate.

LifeNews.com: More members of Congress are pressing for an investigation of the Planned Parenthood abortion business following a new comprehensive report issued by Americans United for Life detailing extensive abuses.

LifeNews.com: A national pro-life group has issued a new report featuring a groundbreaking analysis of the nation’s largest abortion business Planned Parenthood. Americans United for Life says it has uncovered evidence of systemic financial irregularities within the abortion giant, which receives more than $363 million in federal and state taxpayer funding, and that Congress should investigate.

A majority of Americans tell pollsters they do not want taxpayer dollars to subsidize abortions.

Alliance Defense Fund also provides legal help through hundreds of attorneys connected to local pregnancy centers, she said.

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.”

ProLifeBlogs: A first-in-the-nation law that restricts the abortion industry’s use of abortion-inducing RU-486 survived another round this week in a case that began 7 years ago. A federal district court in Ohio ruled that the law was “not vague” but …

LifeNews: HB 1970 requires that abortion providers dispense abortion-inducing drugs only in the way tested and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and outlined in the drug’s label.

LifeNews: The American Center for Law and Justice today secured a sweeping victory for pro-life pharmacy owners in Illinois after a legal battle lasting six years. A state court in Illinois issued a decision striking down a state law that compels pharmacy owners to dispense Plan B and other forms of emergency contraception, even if doing so violates their religious or moral beliefs.

Christianity Today: “Earlier this month, New York City passed a bill requiring centers to disclose whether they provide abortions or emergency contraception, make referrals to organizations that do, and if they have a licensed medical provider on site. The Alliance Defense Fund has filed a lawsuit against the city.”

CBS: State bills are currently pending all over the country, and many states are considering multiple abortion-related bills. (Americans United for Life has a map on its website showing how widespread the anti-abortion efforts are.)

Daniel McConchie writes at LifeSiteNews: Mark Rienzi, an attorney allied with the Alliance Defense Fund and Americans United for Life, helped fight the law in court. In an email, he stated, “We’re very happy with the Judge’s ruling. The County has no business taking over the walls of pro-life pregnancy centers to tell women to go elsewhere.”

Americans United for Life: “Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of Americans United for Life commended the New Hampshire House of Representatives for passing HB 329-FN, an AUL-drafted measure that requires parental notification before abortions may be performed on unemancipated minors, and called on the New Hampshire Senate to do the same.”

The American Independent: National anti-abortion rights law and policy group American United for Life, which credits itself with informing anti-abortion and other health-care related legislation, this month released its Defending Life 2011, a comprehensive guide of model legislation specifically for abortion, legal recognition and protection of the unborn, bioethics and biotechnology, end of life and health care rights of conscience

Pajamas Media: Americans United for Life Vice President of Legal Affairs Denise Burke tells LifeNews.com the “anti-life media once again got their facts wrong” in reporting about AUL’s “Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act.” She said the model legislation seeks to ensure that a pregnant woman and her unborn child are protected from criminal violence and that her decision to carry her child to term is respected and that the model legislation was drafted in direct response to the well-documented and growing problem of pregnancy-related violence against women.

Susan B. Anthony List: “Catherine Foster . . . She is currently working part-time as a law clerk on the Alliance Defense Fund’s life team, and has also worked as a summer intern for Americans United for Life and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute.”

Americans U. for Life: “Telemed abortions” have made headlines in the last year, and with that attention AUL has received numerous requests from state legislators and policy groups seeking to curb the practice. While this issue is so “hot,” states have the perfect opportunity to protect women by regulating the provision of abortion-inducing drugs.

AZ Republic: “This year, legislation is aimed at furthering restrictions on an increasingly popular prescription abortion pill as well as preventing doctors from using remote video technology to serve rural patients seeking abortions.”

LifeNews: “Americans United for Life released a new state-by-state report on the status of state legislation that protects women and unborn children on abortion and on bioethics issues. The report found Oklahoma the most pro-life state in the country and Washington the most pro-abortion.” | AUL report

The Hill: “The Susan B. Anthony List on Wednesday announced that it is mobilizing its 280,000 grassroots activists to pressure lawmakers to vote for repeal when it comes up for a House vote next Wednesday. The organization is also pressing the 112th Congress to pass two of its legislative priorities.”

LifeNews: “The National Right to Life Committee and the Susan B. Anthony List have already contacted Republican lawmakers letting them know they don’t want Upton to chair the committee because of his weak pro-life voting record, and Americans United for Life, according to Politico, has joined them with a letter of its own.”

LifeSiteNews: “Today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Catholic nurse who was forced by a New York hospital to participate in an abortion does not have the right to sue her employer . . . Alliance Defence Fund (ADF) attorneys had filed two suits in the case – one federal, filed in July 2009, and another state, filed earlier this year. ”

Cenzon-DeCarlo v. The Mount Sinai Hospital, No. 10-0556 (2nd Cir. Nov. 23, 2010)

“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.”

Red State: “I think it is necessary to point out, however, that the suggestion that social issues did not play a role in the GOP’s victories this year is also completely untrue . . . What libertarians conveniently forget is that abortion – particularly taxpayer funding of abortion – was a huge issue in the fight over Obamacare . . . Ultimately, 15 of the 20 Democrats targeted by the Susan B. Anthony List lost and 11 of the 12 Democrats targeted by Americans United for Life lost . . .”

“Attorneys for Democrat U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper’s campaign want four Erie radio stations to pull an ad by an anti-abortion group that contends her vote for health care reform resulted in ‘the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortions ever.’”

OneNewsNow: “A spokeswoman for Americans United for Life says it’s obvious the Obama administration wants to circumvent the law and make federal funds available for research that requires the killing of unborn babies.”

LifeNews: “The president of a nationwide pro-life group says Americans, regardless of their opinion on abortion, should stand up against a move in the Senate to allow abortions at taxpayer-funded U.S. military base hospitals. Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest talked about the coming battle.”

“Why then, do we bother? . . . We bother because, in the end, we will win . . . ”

PR Newswire: “‘Elena Kagan will emerge as one of the Supreme Court’s most agenda-driven, reliably pro-abortion Justices. It is deeply troubling that the Senate voted to confirm Ms. Kagan without fully investigating her role in manipulating medical evidence during the partial-birth abortion debate in 1996-97. The American people want fair and impartial judges, and Justice Kagan’s negative impact will be felt for decades to come.’ – Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President & CEO of Americans United for Life Action”