Defending Life and Liberty in NC

Welcome to Family Policy Matters, an engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, this is John Rustin, President of NC Family, and we're grateful to have you with us for this week's program.

It's our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on Family Policy Matters, and that you will feel better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation. And now here is our host of Family Policy Matters, Tracey Devette Griggs. Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. North Carolina lawmakers have made strengthening the protections for pregnant mothers and their babies a priority in recent years, much to the chagrin of the abortion industry. As this legislative session is kicking into high gear here in North Carolina, and nearly a dozen pro-life bills have been filed into the General Assembly, we're going to look at two pro-life cases making their way through North Carolina's court system with the help of our very capable friends over at Alliance Defending Freedom. Well, we're joined today by Denise Harley, Senior Legal Counsel with ADF, which we know is one of the nation's preeminent law firms defending religious liberty, the sanctity of human life, and marriage and family. Denise is working on both of the cases we're discussing today. Denise Harley, welcome to Family Policy Matters. Thanks, Tracey.

It's good to be talking with you. Well, let's start with a case involving Planned Parenthood and the leaders of the General Assembly. What is Planned Parenthood challenging and on what grounds? North Carolina, like most states, has laws protecting the health and safety of women undergoing abortion. These are common sense laws that have been on the books for a long time. They've been upheld by the Supreme Court. But Planned Parenthood has brought a lawsuit challenging several of these, including the requirement that abortions be performed by licensed physicians, or that women be told detailed information about the procedure before undergoing the procedure. So it's sort of the same tactic we see from Planned Parenthood all the time, which is that any regulation protecting women's health and safety is something that gets in the way of their profits. So you and leaders of the legislature recently filed a motion to dismiss that lawsuit. Tell us your reasons for that motion and where is it in the process?

Sure. Well, again, the big picture is that every woman deserves to know about her options in an unexpected pregnancy. And North Carolina's laws protect women in that way, giving her information about alternatives to abortion, making sure that the facilities are properly equipped and sanitized.

And so the General Assembly stands behind those laws, because the state is required to protect the health and safety of its citizens. So in response to Planned Parenthood's lawsuit, the state has moved to dismiss those challenges on the grounds, first of all, that all of those laws are completely common sense, constitutional, and similar to laws that the Supreme Court has upheld. And secondly, it's not the place of Planned Parenthood to come in and pretend to speak for women. This would be like a construction company challenging the OSHA protections for its own workers. There are no women coming forward saying that they don't want the health and safety protections for themselves. Instead, it's the abortion industry.

And it's the fox guarding the henhouse. Right. And this is a problem because Planned Parenthood makes so much of its money doing abortions.

That's right. And what they're asking for is exemptions from protections for their patients. That is, they want a special exemption for things that we see across the medical industry. Anyone who undergoes medical procedures is given consent. And yet abortionists want to be able to avoid actually telling their patient details about the procedure and then getting their patient through consent after understanding the nature of everything that goes on and the alternatives.

And so that's the motive behind these challenges. And we see it across the nation all the time. So the case is this particular case is looking at several pro-life laws that have been on the books for several years at this point. Is it reasonable to expect that at some point, there might be an acceptance of certain pro-life laws that are properly passed by the legislature?

Is that too much to hope for, do you think? You know, it almost seems like the reverse. Because, like you mentioned, these have been on the books. So real quick, it's five laws. So it's the requirement that licensed physicians perform abortions. A prohibition on telemedicine abortions, which I think we understand given the dangers and risks of abortion, why that shouldn't be done virtually, especially when an ultrasound is an important part of diagnosing how far along a pregnancy is.

The facility safety requirements, like making sure that the hallways and elevators can accommodate gurneys, proper ventilation system, sanitation, a 72-hour period that a woman has to consider the informed consent information, and then the actual informed consent information itself. So these are all really important good things for women who are considering abortion. And yet, now Planned Parenthood is saying, well, all of those things, if you add them up, become too burdensome, when in fact, it's been decades since the Supreme Court initially upheld laws like this. And so I think we see an emboldened approach by Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.

I'm not sure if that's because, you know, they filed this before they felt like the Supreme Court was less favorable for them. I don't know where it's coming from, but it actually seems to be a growing attack on basic protections for women and their babies. And at the hearing that we had recently, it was just stunning to hear Planned Parenthood's attorneys arguing that sanitation requirements that North Carolina imposes upon hospital facilities and nursing homes for some reason shouldn't be required in abortion facilities.

What possible reason could there be to not have a healthcare facility performing risky, invasive procedures to not meet basic basic sanitation requirements, have ventilation systems, have hallways that can accommodate a stretcher in the event of an emergency and emergencies happen? These are the sorts of things they're challenging. And it can't be the case that they have women's best interests at heart. And I think that's why they haven't found any women to join them in this lawsuit. Okay, well, let's turn to another North Carolina case that arose during the pandemic, when Love Life ministry members were arrested while peacefully praying outside an abortion clinic. This case is interesting because it concerns constitutional issues related to speech, assembly, due process, emergency government orders and enforcement, all kinds of things. Could you give us an overview of what happened in this situation?

Sure. So the issue in Greensboro with Love Life ministry is a snapshot of what we have seen now for over a year, with certain hostile governments taking their pandemic power too far. And so what happened in Greensboro is not about public health and safety.

It was about the government taking advantage of a crisis to silence speech they didn't agree with. What happened was some Love Life sidewalk counselors and part of their prayer team were out on a Saturday morning praying outside of an abortion clinic on public property as they do every Saturday morning. There were fewer than 10 individuals, they were spaced out, they were wearing masks, they had hand sanitizer, they were following all of the pandemic requirements under the county ordinance in Guilford County.

And, you know, meanwhile, down the road, you've got the Home Depot with dozens of cars in the parking lot, people going in and out, you have people, of course, inside the abortion clinic, who knows how far if they're spaced out or what they're doing. But all around, there were people gathering, having picnics, exercise, and yet the sidewalk counselors were arrested for walking while praying. And we sued over that. We see that as a First Amendment violation, because it seems to very clearly be targeting behavior, not on the actions itself, which are legal under the COVID order, but just because of the viewpoint. And that's unconstitutional. So ultimately, Greensboro dropped all of those charges. So why are we bringing up this lawsuit? Explain why that's important.

That's right. Greensboro dropped all of the criminal charges against my clients. But the fact is, their First Amendment freedoms to free speech and religious freedom were violated. And that is really a priceless right. So they were arrested, hauled to jail, embarrassed, inconvenienced, prevented from engaging in their First Amendment activities, prevented from offering these ministry services that they were just there to help mamas and their babies and the daddies. And yet they were deprived of that right in violation of the Constitution.

And so we have filed a civil lawsuit to have a court order that confirmed that that sort of viewpoint targeting by the government is unconstitutional. And these individuals were damaged by that. Several of them are pastors. And some of them are foster parents. And having an arrest on their record is embarrassing. And it makes it look like they were not equal members of society when in fact they were out there following all of the guidance.

They were very respectful with all the law enforcement officers. And yet still to this day, the only people that the Greensboro Police Department arrested during all of the pandemic for violating this stay-at-home order were these few volunteers for a nonprofit who were following all the rules just because the mayor did not like their pro-life speech. People may not realize either that even though all the charges were dropped, that that kind of thing can still follow an individual around.

Oh, sure. And we're working right now to get those records expunged. Because, you know, we had one of the gentlemen was denied a permit to get a handgun, although otherwise he would have qualified. But the fact that he had an arrest made it seem like he was a suspect individual. Like I said, one of the foster parents, foster fathers, had to answer questions about it every time the foster agency was looking in on him and his family.

And several of the pastors had members of their congregation that had a lot of questions, rightfully so. And you hear that someone's arrested. And then that they also had charges for resisting arrest, which is completely laughable. We have the whole thing on videotape.

And there was, they were peaceful and cooperative the whole time. That damages the reputation. And the whole thing is born out of a hostility towards the pro-life viewpoint. When the county was happy to let people walk down the sidewalk for any other purpose, but if you're walking down the sidewalk to pray against abortion, that led to arrest and being taken to jail. That's just completely against what the constitution says that, you know, we're entitled to as American citizens.

So what connection, if any, do you see between these cases? We certainly see environmental hostility to pro-life youth. We see that there are people in government and in a very wealthy abortion industry that will continually try to impose their viewpoint on the rest of America.

And they will even do it by trying to use the force of the law and the courts to try to stamp out pro-life views and try to impose abortion upon all Americans. And it's unfortunate that we have to litigate these things, but I'm hopeful and thankful that our constitution is robust and that we ultimately will prevail on this. Thank you for your good work. We are very grateful for all that you do over there at ADF.

We're just about out of time. Before we go, Denise Harley, where can our listeners go if they want to follow these cases and all of the good work that you guys are doing over there at Alliance Defending Freedom? We'd be happy for your listeners to check out our website at ADSlegal.org that stands for Alliance Defending Freedom. There you can read about all of our cases.

There's a lot going on right now on the religious liberty front and on the pro-life front. And you can also sign up for our Alliance Alert, which is a weekly email that recaps the breaking news and the top cases. If you're interested, you can also support our work.

We do all of our litigation pro bono. We depend on like-minded citizens across America to link arms with us and help us to fight these battles. And I would really encourage our listeners as well to take a look at what ADF does because quite often in mainstream media, even conservative websites, we hear a lot about what is considered to be violations of our freedoms.

But if you want to see true violations of our constitutional rights, go see what's going on and what ADF is battling because it's just amazing the kinds of things that are happening that often don't get mentioned in the mainstream media. So Denise Harley, Senior Legal Counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, thank you so much for being with us here on Family Policy Matters. Thanks, Tracey. You've been listening to Family Policy Matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plan to tune in again next week. To listen to the show online and to learn more about NC Families' work to inform, encourage, and inspire families across North Carolina, go to our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family.