—Posted by Thomas More Society (July 28, 2010 at 1:22 pm)
Recently the ACLU publicly attacked Catholic hospitals, asking federal officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to investigate and take action against the Catholic facilities for their alleged misconduct in violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act and conditions for participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
What was their alleged “misconduct”? According to the ACLU, the Catholic hospitals have “inappropriately and unlawfully den[ied] pregnant women emergency medical care.” How so? Because, the ACLU complains, the Catholic hospitals decline to provide “reproductive services” to women. What “reproductive services” aren’t provided? The answer, says the ACLU, is that—as if this were only recently discovered!—Catholic hospitals don’t provide abortions!
The ACLU’s complaint focused on the recent demotion of a nun, Sister Margaret Mary McBride, at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, for her role in the hospital’s performing an abortion allegedly to address a serious health problem on the part of the baby’s mother — an event that drew a formal statement of opposition from the ordinary of the Diocese. [Continue reading ...]
—Posted by Thomas More Society (July 27, 2010 at 4:06 pm)
This morning, Thomas More Society attorney Peter Breen entered a “not guilty” plea to the charge of disorderly conduct on behalf of Joseph Holland, the first person arrested under the new Chicago “Bubble Zone” ordinance, which prevents certain types of picketing activity outside local abortion clinics. Holland, a Northwesten University graduate student, was praying the rosary on a public sidewalk outside the Planned Parenthood Near North abortion facility on July 3 when staff called the police, claiming that he had violated the new ordinance.
The “Bubble Zone” ordinance prohibits approaching within eight feet of a person, without consent, “for the purpose of passing a leaflet or handbill to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling.” According to witnesses and available video, Holland was engaged solely in prayer activity and not in leafletting, picketing or “sidewalk counseling.” Video of Holland’s alleged disorderly conduct can be viewed here:
—Posted by Thomas More Society (July 17, 2010 at 7:46 am)
Trespass Cases Against the “ND88″
“ND88″ Attorneys Allege “Viewpoint Discrimination” in Criminal Prosecutions
South Bend, Ind.—This week, another pretrial hearing was held in St. Joseph County Criminal Court involving the criminal trespass charges that the University of Notre Dame and the county prosecutor continue to press against the “ND88.” In a key ruling, Chief Judge Michael Scopelitis confirmed that Thomas More Society attorneys may take a deposition of a Notre Dame official, the former Director of Residential Life at the University.
The ND88, a group of pro-life demonstrators including Alan Keyes, Norma McCorvey and Fr. Norman Weslin, were arrested on Notre Dame’s campus in May 2009, while praying the rosary, singing religious hymns and bearing peaceful, prayerful witness to the sanctity of life as part of a demonstration against Notre Dame’s honoring of President Barack Obama during its Commencement exercises. [Continue reading ...]
—Posted by Thomas More Society (July 8, 2010 at 9:08 pm)
For Immediate Release
For more information, contact:
Stephanie Lewis, TC Public Relations
312-422-1333, Stephanie@tcpr.net
CHICAGO—Today, attorneys from the Thomas More Society, on the eve of seeking emergency injunctive relief in federal court, secured an agreement from the city of West Chicago to allow a pro-life protest to proceed as scheduled tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. in West Chicago, Illinois.
West Chicago officials had notified the Thomas More Society early Thursday that the Pro-Life Action League’s “Face the Truth” Tour protest, which involves people holding abortion signage at busy intersections in various municipalities, would not be permitted to take place Friday morning in that city, due to a new ordinance covering demonstrations and protests. Adopted just this past Tuesday by the city of West Chicago, the ordinance requires would-be demonstrators to apply for a permit at least 90 days prior to a demonstration. The ordinance also allows denial of a permit based on the city administrator’s determination whether he believes a demonstration will negatively affect public “comfort, morals, and welfare.” [Continue reading ...]
—Posted by Thomas More Society (June 23, 2010 at 11:25 pm)
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has cited the amicus (”friend of the court”) brief authored by Thomas More Society Special Counsel Paul Linton in its lengthy opinion on the appeal of capital defendant Adrian Estrada, who had been found guilty for murdering both 17-year old Stephanie Sanchez and her thirteen-week old unborn child. Linton filed the amicus brief on behalf of the Texas Alliance for Life and is cited on page 54-55 in footnote 40.
While Estrada’s lawyers won a reversal and remand for a new punishment hearing, his constitutional challenge to the Texas statute that makes it a capital offense to intentionally or knowingly murder an unborn child—a statute that was also drafted by special counsel Paul Linton—was roundly rejected. [Continue reading ...]
—Posted by Thomas More Society (June 23, 2010 at 11:09 pm)
Last week, a judge denied a motion by the Thomas More Society to dismiss a case against a small homeschooling group in Indiana, the Fishers Adolescent Catholic Enrichment Society (FACES). While the State of Indiana refuses to let up on the small faith-based group, the Thomas More Society continues to vigorously defend the trial of the families involved.
“We remain confident that we will prevail in this hearing,” said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of Thomas More Society. “Our clients did go out of their way to accommodate the claimed disability of the home-schooled student for whom the discrimination charge was brought. We believe that the evidence will show—overwhelmingly—that the student’s mother wasn’t just asking for a ‘reasonable accommodation’ for her daughter, but for her own dictated form of accommodation, which is far more than any law does or should require.” Brejcha also said that the retaliation claim is equally baseless as no group can survive, let alone function, when its members are free to flout and circumvent the decisions of its established leadership. [Continue reading ...]
—Posted by Thomas More Society (June 18, 2010 at 3:06 pm)
Paul Benjamin Linton, special counsel to the Thomas More Society, has just had an article published in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal enitled Long Road to Justice: The IL Supreme Court, the IL Attorney General, and the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995. In it, he explores the Illinois General Assembly’s 35 year struggle to enact an enforceable statute requiring the consent of or notice to the parents of a pregnant minor before she undergoes an abortion.
These efforts to secure an enforceable, effective parental notice law in Illinois have been repeatedly thwarted, despite polls that consistently show dominant majorities of citizens favoring parental notice (including even many abortion supporters) and the existence of parental involvement laws in all Midwestern states surrounding Illinois. In many cases, the statutes themselves were struck down as violative of the governing federal constitutional standards. In another instance, the Illinois Supreme Court failed—or refused—to adopt procedural rules for confidential, expedited “bypass” hearings and appeals, measures deemed necessary for parental involvement laws to satisfy federal constitutional requirements.
Linton explains through the most comprehensive history to date of the 1995 Parental Notice of Abortion Act how both the Illinois Supreme Court and the Illinois Attorneys General—past and present—have failed the people of the state by not taking the steps needed to implement and enforce an otherwise constitutional law, and one with overwhelming public support.
Most recently (see our post on columnist Dennis Byrne’s OpEd), while Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s attorneys defeated the ACLU’s latest attack on the parental notice law, in which the ACLU had charged that the law violated Illinois’ state constitution, her trial attorneys agreed with the ACLU that the law’s enforcement could be “stayed,” i.e., suspended, for as long as it took for the ACLU to appeal the ruling to higher courts. In effect, she won the lawsuit but then threw in the towel! Cook County Chancery Judge Daniel Riley, although dismissing the ACLU’s lawsuit as meritless, entered an “Agreed Order” suspending the law’s enforcement yet again. Thomas More Society, representing downstate county prosecutors, tried repeatedly to intervene in the case to mount a robust defense of the parental notice law and to oppose this latest “stay” of enforcement. But its efforts were rebuffed by Judge Riley when the Attorney General and ACLU objected. The Society has appealed those rulings and will seek to vacate the “stay” when the case reaches the Illinois Appellate Court.
Read the complete article below (Click “Fullscreen” for the best reading experience):
—Posted by Thomas More Society (May 29, 2010 at 11:17 pm)
Chicago Tribune columnist Dennis Byrne has posted a great piece on his Barbershop blog about the decades long struggle to enforce the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act.
The law, which requires girls under 18 to notify at least one parent before procuring an abortion, passed with bi-partisan support in 1995 and has been under constant attack from the ACLU and the abortion lobby who have found every conceivable way of blocking the actual enforcement of the law.
Although the ACLU’s federal lawsuit, claiming the 1995 law violated the federal constitution was finally rejected last August, 2009, by the U.S. Court of Appeals at Chicago, the Illinois Medical Disciplinary agency (whose executive director has ties to Planned Parenthood) allowed a “grace period” for abortion providers to give them more time (after 14 years!) to get ready to comply with the law.
When a second grace period was voted down, the ACLU filed another lawsuit, this time in state court, claiming that the law violated the Illinois State Constitution. This claim, totally baseless, was assigned to Judge Daniel Riley who entered a restraining order (TRO) barring enforcement indefinitely. Although Judge Riley finally dismissed the suit as legally meritless late this past March, he continued his TRO in effect when the Attorney General’s offce—whose duty is to defend Illinois laws—advised him they would agree to continue the enforcement ban in effect indefinitely for the duration of the ACLU’s appeal!
Thomas More Society tried to intervene before Judge Riley for a third time on behalf of downstate county prosecutors, moving to set aside this outrageous ban on the enforcement of a legally valid, fully constitutional law. ACLU filed their appeal and Judge Riley ruled he had no jurisdiction to address the intervention motion. Now Thomas More Society lawyers have appealed the denials of intervention as well as Judge Riley’s refusal to hear their motion to overturn the “stay” so the law could go immediately into effect. Get more in Byrne’s excellent post linked below:
—Posted by Thomas More Society (May 29, 2010 at 9:22 pm)
For Immediate Release
Chicago—Today, attorneys from the Thomas More Society filed an appeal in an effort to vacate the stay Judge Daniel Riley imposed on the implementation of the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act, arguing that there is no legal basis to further delay the law.
“The Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act has held up numerous times against attacks by the ACLU and other opponents, and we believe there is no legal reason to prevent implementation of this long-overdue and much-needed law in Illinois,” said Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive director and legal counsel. “It is time to enforce this law and put an end to secret abortions in Illinois.”
Earlier this spring, Judge Riley dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that challenged the constitutionality of the Act and imposed a stay of his decision until the ACLU’s appeal of that decision is complete—a process that could take years.
The Thomas More Society has argued that the continuation of the temporary restraining order via Judge Riley’s indefinite stay violates Illinois law and contradicts the will of the people, particularly after the law had been found constitutional and valid.
—Posted by Thomas More Society (May 27, 2010 at 10:19 pm)
Friday, May 21, Judge Neal Cerne denied motions to dismiss three of the five counts in the zoning lawsuit against the City of Aurora, Illinois and Planned Parenthood. The suit involves the building of the “Abortion Fortress” of Aurora in 2007 when Planned Parenthood entered the city under a cloud of deception.
Planned Parenthood presented itself to the city as a general use medical facility under the name Gemini Office Development and told the city council point blank that they didn’t know what tenants would be occupying the building. They represented the project as a general use, for-profit medical building that might house dentists or family doctors. [Continue reading ...]
Recently the ACLU publicly attacked Catholic hospitals, asking federal officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to investigate and take action against the Catholic facilities for their alleged misconduct in violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act and conditions for participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
For Immediate Release
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has cited the amicus (”friend of the court”) brief authored by Thomas More Society Special Counsel Paul Linton in its lengthy opinion on the appeal of capital defendant Adrian Estrada, who had been found guilty for murdering both 17-year old Stephanie Sanchez and her thirteen-week old unborn child. Linton filed the amicus brief on behalf of the Texas Alliance for Life and is cited on page 54-55 in footnote 40.
Last week, a judge denied a motion by the Thomas More Society to dismiss a case against a small homeschooling group in Indiana, the Fishers Adolescent Catholic Enrichment Society (FACES). While the State of Indiana refuses to let up on the small faith-based group, the Thomas More Society continues to vigorously defend the 
Paul Benjamin Linton, special counsel to the Thomas More Society, has just had an article published in the 
Chicago Tribune columnist Dennis Byrne has posted a great piece on his 
Friday, May 21, Judge Neal Cerne denied motions to dismiss three of the five counts in the zoning lawsuit against the City of Aurora, Illinois and Planned Parenthood. The suit involves the building of the “Abortion Fortress” of Aurora in 2007 when Planned Parenthood entered the city under a cloud of deception.