Pro-life leaders on Wednesday responded to a federal judge blocking Texas’ pro-life “heartbeat” law, just more than one month after the law went into effect.
In a ruling on Wednesday, Oct. 6, Judge Robert Pitman of the Western District of Texas halted enforcement of the law by the state and its private citizens. The Texas Heartbeat Act (S.B. 8) restricts most abortions after detection of a fetal heartbeat. It is enforced through private civil lawsuits against those performing illegal abortions, as well as against those deemed culpable under the law of assisting in illegal abortions.
The Biden administration filed a complaint requesting a temporary restraining order on the state or anyone filing a lawsuit under the law. Pitman granted that request on Wednesday.
“A person’s right under the Constitution to choose to obtain an abortion prior to fetal viability is well established,” Judge Pitman wrote in his decision.
In response, pro-life groups criticized the ruling.
“Judge Pittman’s stonewalling of the Texas Heartbeat Act is a shameless example of unfettered judicial activism at its worst,” said Chelsey Youman, Texas state director of the group Human Coalition Action. “His historic injunction has no regard for the rule of law, and is more about partisan politics than a fair judgment of the law.”
“The people of Texas speaking through their state legislators acted to protect unborn children with beating hearts, who are as human as you and me,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List.
“The Heartbeat Act is estimated to have saved more than 4,700 babies since it took effect over a month ago. Now an unelected judge has interfered with the clearly expressed will of Texans,” she wrote.
It is unclear how many lawsuits were filed under the Texas law.
The Biden administration applauded Wednesday’s ruling. Attorney General Merrick Garland hailed it as “a victory for women in Texas and for the rule of law.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki, in a statement late Wednesday evening, called it “an important step forward toward restoring the constitutional rights of women across the state of Texas.”
“The fight has only just begun,” she added, noting that Biden “supports codifying Roe v. Wade” and “has directed a whole-of-government response to S.B. 8.”
In his ruling on Wednesday, Judge Pitman wrote that Texas “contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme” that “circumvented the traditional process” of judicial review by allowing private citizens to enforce the law through lawsuits.
Texas has appealed the ruling to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Youman stated that “abortion providers should remain on notice that SB 8 specifically allows them to be held liable for every preborn child who’s heartbeat they end for up to six years.”
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Washington D.C., Mar 6, 2018 / 03:23 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statement asking people to pray, call, and write to their Congressional representatives to urge the inclusion of the Conscience Protection Act in the government’s upcoming funding bill.
The statement, issued by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, chair of the conference’s pro-life committee, and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, chair of the religious liberty committee, urges Catholics to “flood” their members of Congress in support of the act.
“Increasing and fierce attacks on conscience rights regarding abortion cry out for an immediate remedy,” said the archbishops. “Nurses and other health care providers and institutions are being forced to choose between participating in abortions or leaving health care altogether.”
While the bishops’ conference is encouraging action each day until the bill is enacted, they are especially focusing on Monday, March 12 as a day of action. The funding deadline is March 23.
The Conscience Protection Act would protect physicians and nurses from being forced to engage in procedures that violate their conscience, such as abortion or sterilization.
It would also prevent employers from being forced to cover abortions in their health care plans if the procedure violates their conscience beliefs. Currently, three states–California, Oregon, and New York–require most or all insurance plans to cover abortion.
“Opponents and supporters of abortion should be able to agree that no one should be forced to participate in abortion,” reads the bishops’ statement. “Congress must remedy this problem by enacting the Conscience Protection Act now as part of the FY 2018 funding bill.”
Failure to pass this legislation could result in prejudice against pro-life or religious employees, said Dr. Michael Parker of the Catholic Medical Association.
“If it’s not enacted, it could lead to discrimination against these people – failure to work for certain employers or given access to certain programs,” he told CNA.
“For example, Vanderbilt University made all their nurse practitioners in their programs agree to participate in abortion procedures in order to be accepted into their program,” Parker said. There have also been several cases where nurses have faced the threat of losing their job if they would not assist in an abortion.
Parker warned that forcing someone to violate their conscience in this manner could result in additional issues later in life. Mandating someone who is against abortion to perform or assist with one could “cause them to have significant remorse,” or could possibly trigger psychological problems.
“[The Catholic Medical Association] has always been for a conscience protection law that protects the conscience rights of physicians, especially in performing elective procedures such as abortions, sterilizations, physician-assisted suicide – or even genital mutilation,” said Parker.
The U.S. bishops’ conference has also released a video as part of the promotional effort for next week’s advocacy:
A young woman holds a pro-life sign during a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. / Joseph Portolano/CNA
Washington D.C., Jun 25, 2023 / 06:40 am (CNA).
Marking the first anniversary of Roe being overturned, a group of pro-life leaders rallied hundreds to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Saturday with the message that they were united around the fight for full, legal protection for the unborn from the moment of conception in all 50 states.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told those gathered on a sunny, hot summer day that while she celebrated the 25 states that have passed strong pro-life laws, “we are in fact living in a divided states of America” where “a person’s location determines if they will survive the abortion gauntlet as we did.”
Hawkins said the country must become “an America where every human being is recognized as the unrepeatable person as they are with equal rights and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed, not because of what state their mother resides in or if they are perceived to be convenient or the circumstances of their conception.”
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, addresses the crowd at a pro-life rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Hawkins told CNA that pro-life leaders are uniting around the belief “that every human being is a human person at conception” and that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal justice clauses should be equally applied to persons in the womb.
“At a very minimum if you’re running for federal office, you should be able to acknowledge that abortion is a federal issue,” she said. “We want to see every presidential contender join with us to acknowledge what is so clearly written in the Fourteenth Amendment: that all human beings are human persons and deserve equal protection of our laws.”
Lila Rose, president of the pro-life group Live Action, called the Fourteenth Amendment “one of the most beautiful notes in our national song” and lamented that “when it comes to preborn children we have failed to extend these protections.”
Speaking at a rally in front of of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, Lila Rose, president of the pro-life group Live Action, called it a “tragic contradiction” that “while our society celebrates advancements in prenatal care and technology, we simultaneously deny personhood and rights, the personhood and rights of these very same children.”. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Rose called it a “tragic contradiction” that “while our society celebrates advancements in prenatal care and technology, we simultaneously deny personhood and rights, the personhood and rights of these very same children. It is inconceivable that we would selectively deny these rights to one group of human beings solely based on their location: the womb.”
Republican presidential candidate and former Vice President Mike Pence, who recently called on his fellow GOP presidential candidates to join him in backing a “minimum” nationwide 15-week abortion limit, made an appearance at the rally.
“As we celebrate this anniversary, let us here resolve that we will work and we will pray as never before to advance the cause of life in the laws of the land in every state in America. That we will support women in crisis pregnancies with resources and support for their care, for the unborn, and for the newborn as never before,” Pence said.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, addresses the crowd at a pro-life rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, marking the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Joseph Portolano/CNA
“We stand for the babies and their unalienable right to life,” he said, pledging that he and his family “will never rest and never relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the land.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-life America, shared words of advice for the growing list of 2024 presidential candidates: “Get your act together. Figure out what you’re for and advance it. Don’t wait,” she urged.
“We have consensus in this country,” she added. “Start with that and be the president you’re called to be in justice and love for moms and justice and love for their babies.” Consistent Gallup polling shows that the majority of Americans would prefer to limit abortion to the first three months of pregnancy.
There were many young people in the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial, including Katriel Nyman, a 17-year-old from Washington state who is with Students for Life Tri-Cities. She told CNA that it was “really encouraging to see a bunch of people who believe in rights from conception.”
She said she’d “like to see more pro-lifers continue to persevere through this” post-Dobbs fight because “even if abortion isn’t legal in your state, you should be fighting for the rights of infants that are soon to be born in other states.”
Sameerah Munshi, a recent graduate of Brown University who is interning with the Religious Freedom Institute, holds a sign with a verse from the Quran about the sanctity of life that reads “We have dignified the children of Adam,” at a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023. Lauretta Brown/CNA
Sameerah Munshi, a recent graduate of Brown University who is interning with the Religious Freedom Institute, held a sign with a verse from the Quran about the sanctity of life that read “We have dignified the children of Adam.”
She told CNA that she wanted to make her voice heard as a Muslim who believes, based on her faith, that abortion is wrong in most cases. She said many Muslims followers feel, as she does, that life begins “in the first couple weeks after conception.”
Munshi said that in the year since the Dobbs decision, “a lot of people that I know who don’t have strong opinions on abortion have been coming out either in favor or against” abortion. She sees it as valuable that there’s more discourse about the abortion issue and people are “coming to more conclusions for themselves as opposed to maybe rhetoric that they’ve seen in the news or rhetoric that they feel has been a part of their political platform.”
Jessica Newell, a Catholic student who is interning with Live Action and entering her third year at Coastal Carolina University, told CNA that “it’s so important for people who are indoctrinated by this culture to learn the truth about biology and the truth about God and that they’re made in the image of God.”
She emphasized that the pro-life movement still has so much to do and part of that work is “letting people know that they’re loved, that is a big step in changing the culture to a culture of life.”
Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline-infusion abortion at 31 weeks gestation, stands alongside her oldest daughter Olivia, 15, at a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023. Joseph Portolano/CNA
Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline-infusion abortion at 31 weeks gestation, stood at the rally alongside her oldest daughter Olivia, 15, and a sign which read “Babies survive abortions. I am one of them.”
“This was a very personal thing for Roe to be overturned,” she told CNA, “It is a day that we can celebrate, but it has not been a chance to pause, take our breath, it has been a time of continuing to hit the ground running.”
In her work heading the Abortion Survivors Network, Ohden said that since the Dobbs decision she’s heard from “more women than ever reaching out to us after their chemical abortions have failed.” She said it’s important to reach moms who are vulnerable to chemical abortions which make up the majority of abortions in the country.
Ohden said that since Dobbs the pro-life movement “has continued to be the side that is providing resources and support whether it’s in communities, at the state level, pushing for federal policy that supports mothers and children and families in a greater way.”
Her daughter Olivia said it was “amazing” to be at the rally with her mom and called the issue an emotional one because “people like my mom should be protected no matter who they are, where they are.”
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