Posted by Thomas More Society (August 31, 2009 at 4:49 pm)
TMS Attorneys Seek Extraordinary Relief in Illinois High Court to Force State Medical Board to Enforce the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995.
After our long struggle to secure an enforceable, fully “constitutional” Parental Notice Act in Illinois, we kept running into roadblock after roadblock as officials kept trying to delay and block the actual enforcement of the law. The latest obstacle occurred right after the U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the ACLU’s latest constitutional challenge to the law. The Illinois Medical Disciplinary Board recommended to the state’s Department of Professional Regulation that enforcement be delayed for a 90 day “grace period,” ostensibly to allow abortion providers to get into step with the law.
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Posted by Thomas More Society (August 31, 2009 at 10:43 am)
Illinois Supreme Court Urged to Order Enforcement, Without Delay, of Illinois Law Requiring Physicians to Notify Minor’s Parents before Performing an Abortion
CHICAGO, Aug. 31 —Today, the Thomas More Society, a public interest law firm based in Chicago, has filed in the Illinois Supreme Court an original action for “writ of mandamus,” asking the Justices to order the immediate enforcement, without further delay, of the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 (”Parental Notice Act” or “the Act”), and directing the members of the Illinois State Medical Disciplinary Board, the Acting Secretary of the Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation, and the Director of the Division of Professional Regulation to expunge and negate their recommendation and order, handed down earlier this month, suspending enforcement of the Parental Notice Act for ninety days. The Society alleges that these administrative officials acted without legal authority and in defiance of legally required procedures in unilaterally announcing that they would wait three months before enforcing this duly enacted Illinois law and that their illegal action could only be remedied – on a timely basis – by the Supreme Court’s direct and immediate intervention.
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Posted by Thomas More Society (August 28, 2009 at 10:47 am)
Court of Appeals Urged to Reverse Lower Court’s Recognition of Out-of State Same-Sex Marriages
Chicago, Aug. 28—This week the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ordered that the Chicago-based Thomas More Society could file an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the New York State Catholic Conference to defend traditional marriage in the case of Kenneth Lewis v. New York State Department of Civil Service. The central issue is whether New York state should recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages that have been lawfully entered into in another state. The brief argues that recognition of same-sex marriages, which would undermine a natural and social institution, is not required by New York precedents governing recognition of out-of-state marriages.
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Posted by Thomas More Society (August 4, 2009 at 3:39 pm)
Facing legal challenge from the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, IRS backs off from objections to the Coalition’s prayers and protests against Planned Parenthood
Chicago, Aug. 4—Today attorneys from the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm based in Chicago, finally received an official “Determination Letter” from the Internal Revenue Service granting tax exempt status to the Coalition for Life of Iowa, a newly formed grass roots pro-life citizen group based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The IRS had long delayed approval of the Coalition’s request for the exemption, pressing it for “details” about the content of its members’ prayers at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility and demanding that it refrain from activities at Planned Parenthood that could be construed as protesting or picketing by police or harassing or being confrontational with abortion-bound clients. IRS also demanded that every member of the board of directors of the Coalition sign a statement, under penalty of perjury, that they will not picket or protest or organize others to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood.
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