It's a girl! Please let her live.

The latest pro-life news from Capitol Hill features a hearing on legislation that would ban abortions for the purpose of sex selection--a bill that especially would protect girls from gendercide.
Chairman Franks (R-AZ) (@RepTrentFranks) recently chaired a Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on H.R. 4924, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2016 (PRENDA). His opening statement can be viewed here. Complete video from the hearing is available on the Judiciary Committee’s website at this link. 

Majority witnesses

Catherine Davis, Founding Core Member of National Black Pro-Life Coalition and President of The Restoration Project

video and text of testimony

Exchanges with Chairman Franks on the purpose of and need for PRENDA, part 1 and part 2

Anna Higgins, Associate Scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute

video and text of testimony

Exchanges with Chairman Franks concerning the constitutionality of PRENDA, part 1 and part  2

Rev. Derek McCoy, National Clergy Relations Director for Center for Urban Renewal and Education

video and text of testimony

Exchange with Chairman Franks on the need to protect the vulnerable

Minority witness

Miriam Yeung, Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum

text of testimony

ADF intervenors on victory over ACLU:"No American should be forced to commit an abortion"

Matt Bowman

The Alliance Defending Freedom news release below highlights an important case that illustrates just how far some will go to force abortion ideology on those who would protect the unborn. 
Thanks to colleagues Matt Bowman and Kevin Theriot for their typically excellent work in this case.

Court dismisses ACLU suit that sought to force Catholic hospital, staff to commit abortions

ADF intervened in case on behalf pro-life physician groups in defense of Catholic hospital network

Monday, April 11, 2016

Attorney sound bites:  Kevin Theriot | Matt Bowman

Kevin Theriot

DETROIT – A federal court Monday threw out an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that sought to force a Catholic hospital system and its staff to commit abortions regardless of their religious and pro-life objections.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent the Catholic Medical Association, the Christian Medical Association, and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which the court allowed on March 10 to intervene in the case in defense of Trinity Health Corporation. Trinity Health operates 86 facilities in 21 states.
“No American should be forced to commit an abortion—least of all faith-based medical workers who went into the profession to follow their faith and save lives, not take them,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “No law requires religious hospitals and medical personnel to commit abortions against their faith and conscience, and, in fact, federal law directly prohibits the government from engaging in any such coercion. As we argued in our brief to the court, the ACLU had no standing to bring this suit and demand this kind of government coercion.”
“Those who doubt that anyone would ever try to force someone to commit an abortion need only look at this case,” explained ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman. “This is precisely what the ACLU sought to do. The court came to the right conclusion in putting an end to their quest. The ruling relies on important case law that our pro-life medical group clients cited showing that the ACLU’s case was based on pure speculation.”
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, in its dismissal order in American Civil Liberties Union v. Trinity Health Corporation called the ACLU’s claims of harm from the hospital system’s pro-life position “dubious,” explaining that they haven’t satisfied the legal requirements to demonstrate such harm and therefore bring a lawsuit.
The court additionally found that, for those reasons and others, the lawsuit is not “ripe for review,” meaning that nothing has happened to warrant court action: “Obviously, pregnancy alone is not a ‘particular condition’ that requires the termination of said pregnancy. To find the claim to be ripe for review on the facts pleaded before this Court would be to grant a cause of action to every pregnant woman in the state of Michigan upon the date of conception. Accordingly, the alleged harm has not risen beyond a speculative nature and is not ripe for review.”

Obamacare "conscience" accommodation: Like making conscientious military objectors designate proxies for combat

The US Agency for International Development boasts that the United States is “the world’s largest family planning bilateral donor for 50 years, ” “supports voluntary family planning” and “takes a rights-based approach to family planning.” Here at home with its own citizens, however, the administration has taken the opposite tack.

Rather than directly providing contraceptives for voluntary use as it does overseas, the Obama administration instead has mandated coverage through employer-paid insurance plans. Not even nuns who care for the elderly—like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who this week had to ask the Supreme Court for protection—can claim a conscientious objection.

The administration’s “accommodation” of conscientious objectors is to force the nuns to sign a form that tells the government to make their insurance company provide contraceptives. That’s like making a conscientious objector to military conscription designate a proxy for combat.

The nuns and other religious objectors simply seek the freedom to follow their beliefs without fear of government punishment—in this case, draconian fines that would wipe out the ministry. At stake is not only the First Amendment freedom of religious exercise, but the rights of all citizens to speak and act in accordance with their beliefs—even when those beliefs challenge the government’s ideology and power.

[Note: The Christian Medical Association has filed an amicus brief in this case, Zubik v. Burwell. A dvidided Supreme Court recently asked both parties to consider and report back new solutions.]