American Bar Association Targets Pro-Life Judicial Nominee

Abortion, , ,

In August we told you about Steve Grasz, an attorney from Nebraska who has been nominated for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

While it is impossible to know for sure, Mr. Grasz’s track record working for the Nebraska Attorney General’s office leads us to believe he would make an excellent federal judge.

Now it is up to the U.S. Senate to review and confirm Mr. Grasz’s nomination. However, this week a committee with the American Bar Association said Mr. Grasz is not qualified to serve in the Eighth Circuit.

The American Bar Association committee cited Mr. Grasz’s “pro-life agenda,” saying his personal convictions “created a lack of objectivity” and that Mr. Grasz’s “passionately-held social agenda appeared to overwhelm and obscure the ability to exercise dispassionate and unbiased judgment.”

Writing at National Review Online, legal expert Ed Whelan notes the ABA’s statement was based in large part on a longer report written by University of Arkansas School of Law professor Cynthia Nance.

He writes,

Nance’s strong ideological bias is not difficult to uncover. Among other things, she signed a letter opposing the confirmation of Justice Alito. Given the ABA’s persistent complaints about Grasz’s supposed inability to separate his judging from his “pro-life agenda,” it’s notable that that letter against Alito complains about the impact that he would have on—euphemism alert!—“women’s reproductive freedoms.” Nance also signed a letter arguing that the “government’s interests in protecting women’s health and reproductive freedom, and combating gender discrimination,” meant that even religiously affiliated organizations—like the Little Sisters of the Poor—should be required to provide contraceptive coverage (including drugs and devices that can also operate in an abortifacient manner) notwithstanding their own religiously informed views on what constitutes illicit moral complicity in evil.

It is unfortunate anyone would try to argue that being pro-life or defending pro-life laws makes a person unfit to serve as a judge, but it appears the American Bar Association is doing precisely that.

Photo Credit: By Brian Turner (Flickr: My Trusty Gavel) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Sex-Selective Abortion in America

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Our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview have released an excellent commentary on sex-selection abortion in America.

Sex-selection abortion is the act of aborting a child due to the baby’s sex. John Stonestreet writes,

Newsweek reported last year that sex-selective abortions are on the rise right here in the U. S. One study by Columbia University found that Chinese, Korean and Indian parents on their second pregnancy gave birth to 117 boys for every 100 girls. For third children, the ratio shot up to a staggering 151 boys for every 100 girls.

The culprit, says Newsweek, is sex-selective abortion. So-called “family planning” clinics like those affiliated with Planned Parenthood are helping women kill their unborn daughters. You’d think organizations that pride themselves on protecting and empowering women would want this to stop, but you’d be wrong. . . . .

Back in March, when Arkansas enacted a ban on sex-selective abortions, the American Civil Liberties Union complained that the law prevents women from “obtaining abortions that they want for whatever reason,” even, apparently, if that reason is preferring boys over girls.

The Arkansas law he mentions is Act 733 of 2017. It prohibits abortions performed due to the unborn baby’s sex, and it requires abortion doctors to obtain some of a woman’s medical records to verify she is not seeking a sex-selection abortion. Back in June the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Act 733 claiming “there is no medical reason to obtain these records prior to providing an abortion.”

Abortion providers are grasping at straws. Sex-selection abortion is indefensible — and so is failure to obtain a woman’s medical records prior to an abortion.

You can listen to John Stonestreet’s entire commentary here.

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Arkansas A.G. Asks Eighth Circuit to Let State De-Fund Planned Parenthood

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This week Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge asked the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals not to overturn a panel’s ruling that lets the state cut Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading abortion provider. In 2015 Governor Asa Hutchinson directed the state to stop giving Medicaid reimbursements to the organization after a series of undercover videos showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of organs and tissue harvested from aborted babies.

Following a lengthy lawsuit, a three-judge panel ruled in August that the state has the power to cut Medicaid funds to abortion providers. Planned Parenthood appealed that decision to the entire Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Below is a full timeline of the issue of publicly-funded abortion in Arkansas.

  • November 8, 1988: Voters in Arkansas passed Amendment 68 to the Arkansas Constitution prohibiting public funds from paying for abortion, except to save the mother’s life.
  • July 25, 1994: Following a lawsuit by an abortion clinic in Little Rock, a federal court blocked enforcement of Amendment 68, saying it violated the Hyde Amendment — a rider on the federal budget Congress passed in 1994 prohibiting public funding of abortions except in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother.
  • July 25, 1995: The Eight Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s ruling.
  • March 18, 1996: The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling, essentially saying Amendment 68 could only be blocked insofar as it conflicted with the Hyde Amendment. Practically speaking, this has prevented public funding of abortion in most cases, with the exception of abortions paid for with Medicaid funds in certain circumstances permitted by the federal Hyde Amendment.
  • April 6, 2015: The Arkansas Legislature passed Act 996 prohibiting the state from awarding grants to abortion providers and their affiliates.
  • August 14, 2015: Governor Asa Hutchinson directed the Department of Human Services to terminate its Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood.
  • October 2, 2015: U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker issued a preliminary injunction forcing the State of Arkansas to continue making Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood following a lawsuit by three of Planned Parenthood’s patients.
  • September 29, 2016: U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker expanded that ruling to apply to all of Planned Parenthood’s patients in Arkansas. Arkansas’ attorney general appealed the ruling to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • August 16, 2017: A three-judge panel from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Arkansas can decline to provide Medicaid reimbursements to abortion providers.
  • August 30, 2017: The three-judge panel’s decision was appealed to the full Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • October 24, 2017: Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s office asked the Eighth Circuit to leave the panel’s decision in place.

Photo Credit: By Brian Turner (Flickr: My Trusty Gavel) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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