WATCH: Major Supreme Court Ruling

We got breaking news, Supreme Court has issued a major ruling on abortion pill access. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow.

We'll be taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. Going through the breaking news, Supreme Court has rejected the bid to restrict access to the abortion pill, essentially saying that it is good to go. But it really is a bigger sort of ruling than that. And we're going to break that down with, this was a nine to zero ruling by the way, which I think is a lot of people are surprised about this, obviously saying that not restricting access to the abortion pill. Now there are some reasons because you may be, well, how could a Justice Thomas and a Justice Alito or some of these ones are more conservative values? How could they vote for this? We are going to break that down coming up in the next segment with Cece Heil.

She'll be joining us because really if you kind of dive deep to learn more about this, but it is breaking news. Essentially saying there were no grounds for this lawsuit to even take place and really little to do with the fact that it was a abortion pill. It had to do with the fact that they didn't feel that there was standing in this case. Now I want to clarify, and we'll break that with her too, is that this was not an ACLJ case and maybe precisely for reasons like this. When we decide to take a case, we decide what we're going to move forward with. We don't do it to lose. Sometimes people do it knowing that they're going to lose. And this is a nine to zero loss really for the pro-life community. But there is some silver linings.

We're going to break those down coming up. That's right. So this case was captioned the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine versus the Food and Drug Administration. It was originally filed in district court in Texas. And what the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine was arguing was that the FDA, even when they approved Mifepristone for use for what they call medical abortions, it's an abortion pill effectively, that they didn't go through the proper channels, even approving it back when it was first approved. But then after the fact that they progressively more loosened restrictions on the prescribing of this, there was even mailing it and things of that nature that they were saying, even after approval, they didn't go through the normal safeguards that the FDA would have when regulating a medicine, in this case, an abortion pill. So this case went through the district court system and made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. We did file some amicus briefs on this because we did believe that some of the underlying legal issues were right. However, what the Supreme Court found was that the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the group that sued to get this taken off the market, didn't have standing to bring this suit.

And now we're gonna have Cece Heil in the next segment. She's gonna go into more detail, but effectively, they didn't even look at the merits of the legal argument, the things that we were arguing in our briefs of why it maybe should be regulated differently or that the FDA stepped out of bounds in their safeguards. But the Supreme Court didn't get that far. They said, look, this group doesn't have standing. There's no harm that they can point to to this group specifically, and therefore, nine to nothing, this case is overturned. Yeah, they had a true client and someone that said, hey, you know, I took this pill and had these kind of medical complications and I wanna sue them. That's a client.

That's a reason to do it. But here's what, this is just from NBC News. The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the challenge to the abortion pill, meaning the commonly used drug can remain widely available. The court found unanimously the group of anti-abortion doctors who questioned the Food and Drug Administration's decision, make it easier to access the pill, did not have legal standing to sue.

And by throwing out the case on such grounds, the court avoided reaching a decision on the legal merits of the use of this. So we're gonna take your calls. I'd love to hear from you. If you have a question coming up, Cece's gonna be joining us. We can really break down what the ramifications are of this ruling.

And again, maybe some of the silver lining may be hidden in some of the responses from the justices. We'll go over that. Coming up, Tulsi Gabbard's gonna be joining us later in the broadcast. I know you've probably seen some of the thwarted terrorist attacks that are happening around the country right now.

Really scary time, but you know, we'll break that down with her coming up. Again, give me a call, 1-800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ.

Go to ACLJ.org. Make that donation today, halfway through the month of June. We really would appreciate it.

We'll be right back. Welcome to Secular. We are discussing that breaking news item out of the Supreme Court. I brought Cece Heil and senior counsel here at the ACLJ to really give you guys a big understanding of what this ruling means. Cause you may see a nine to zero loss in the terms of the allowance of the abortion pill to remain on the market. But when we broke it down a little bit, that's not necessarily what it says. And there's actually some, as Will pointed out, you don't want to say a silver lining in this, but there is a silver lining for future cases in this decision.

Yeah. And you know, it is obviously you, you see this ruling and you think like you just said, Oh gosh, this is, you know, a defeat, but it's, it's a technical legal thing. And when you lose on standing, I mean, and this is just kind of a general thing. You have to have an injury. You have to be injured, personally injured to be able to bring a lawsuit.

And here the court, I think rightfully acknowledges that there, they have no injury. In fact, they're, you know, saying that it's downstream and they're not the doctors that are prescribing Mifepristone. They're not a pregnant woman who's possibly taken Mifepristone and had terrible consequences happen because of these, you know, released kind of, and relaxed restrictions. And I don't know if you went over this, but you know, in 2000, that's when Mifepristone was first prescribed. And then, and at that time it can only be prescribed up to seven weeks of a pregnancy. A doctor must have prescribed it. It had to be prescribed by a doctor and you had to have three in-person visits. In 2016, the FDA then starts relaxing these regulations and says, well, now you can use it up to 10 weeks.

And guess what? A doctor doesn't have to prescribe it. It's just a healthcare practitioner that can prescribe it. And you don't have to have three in-person visits. You have to have one in-person visit.

And then we go to 2021 and they're like, you know what, you don't have to have any in-person visits. And you don't, so you, I can see that there is a client, a plaintiff in this case that has been harmed by what the FDA has done, because there is an argument that these are not legal changes that they've done, but this entity was not the one to bring it. Yeah, it was the wrong case to go to it. And obviously we're supportive. And then there's other legal groups who bring this sort of case forward. And obviously it was due with life where we want to get involved. The ACLJ wants to get involved.

Whatever it has to do with life. And we did get involved where we thought was appropriate, but it didn't even quite get there. I mean, it does make you wonder how you get to Supreme Court, knowing that this is kind of what the result is going to be. Knowing that result is going to be, like I said, there is no standing.

Nine to zero. Some potentially, I mean, this was the court that overturned Roe. The most pro-life court maybe on record. And now you make some sort of blunders in some ways. And it's really disappointing to me as someone who has been a pro-life activist my entire life to see these kinds of situations go. And I think that's why you gotta be very careful. And look, I don't point fingers at any other organizations, legal organizations, Christian legal organizations that do good work.

I think there's some other great great entities that do it. But we are very selective at the ACLJ on what we take, how we take it, and how we proceed forward. And sometimes you lose, sure.

But sometimes you don't lose nine to zero over standing because you can't even get to the meat of the issue. Right. And there are absolutely legal concerns. And the court even gives a nod to that. That there are legitimate legal concerns about mifepristone and how the FDA has approved it and how they have relaxed, you know, their restrictions. And so there is a legal argument.

And I don't, you know, discredit anybody for trying it, but to just say, okay, standing is an issue. And the fifth circuit, they said they had standing. So this was an issue where a lower court had decided, yes, they're standing, but trying to find that really good plaintiff so that you don't even have to get into these arguments that are kind of the technical arguments. Legal, legal side, but the legal, technical, law school, right. Analytics side, not to do with the people or the case or the actual issue that's at hand.

That's right. Because again, I do think there is a claim to be made that what the FDA has done is not right and can be legally attacked. You just have to have the right plaintiff to bring that case. Now we told people there is a little bit of a silver lining here, and this comes in the form of the concurrence by Justice Thomas. Clarence Thomas is known as arguably the most conservative member of the Supreme Court. He's the left's favorite person to attack because he is so conservative. Alito now.

Oh, that's right. Now, Alito, he's taken some of Clarence Thomas's love there, but he wrote a concurrence and he said he joins the court in full on their rationale of standing. And so when you're hearing this from Clarence Thomas, you have to set aside maybe what you wanted to happen and think, I trust his legal jurisprudence.

I trust his rationale. He's one of the most logical members of the court and typically delivers for conservative victories on the court. But this is actually a legal analyst on MSNBC broke down the concurrence.

So I want to play this it's by 20. And then we're going to talk with CC about that little bit of silver lining of how it could actually help fight back against people like Planned Parenthood in some of the lawsuits they bring against pro-life folks after we play this fight. What no one has talked about in this 38 page opinion is that it was unanimous. But Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the most stalwart objectors to abortion on the court filed a separate concurrence. And in that separate concurrence, he railed against the court's third party standing doctrine. And he said that if this particular organization lacks standing, then other organizations, including abortion providers, abortion clinics who frequently bring lawsuits challenging abortion laws on behalf of their patients also lack standing.

So he is laying the seeds for this to eliminate standing for the traditional patiply of providers who would bring these cases on behalf of their plaintiffs. That's absolutely correct. And even when, you know, I realized that this opinion had come out, that's truthfully where my mind went. Explain that. Let's break that down.

Because there was sound issues in there. So make sure it's clear. So his statement was basically, so just as abortionists lack standing to assert the rights of their clients, doctors who oppose abortion cannot vicariously assert the rights of their patients. And why this is so important is because every time we have a case or pro-life law that's passed, it's usually Planned Parenthood. It's usually the abortionists that come and bring the cases on behalf of their patients. And so this is an opportunity where Justice Thomas was able to say, abortionist cannot do that. We're ruling in this case that this, you know, pro-life alliance can't do it. But let me explain to you that also means unequivocally, I mean exactly, that these abortionists cannot bring those cases. So I kind of figured that's what I would read somewhere in the opinion of, he is absolutely saying, in the future, we're going to throw out these cases on standing when the pro-abortionists bring them. If you have a question about this, I know it gets very technical because you made me just see in the headlines.

That's why I wanted to bring in CeCe. That's why I want to bring in our legal experts so you can go a little bit beyond the headline because the headline is big loss. It's big loss, you know, the abortion pill allowed, nine to zero. That can seem like a major defeat.

But always, there's usually something in the Supreme Court opinions that can be taken as a win in some ways. I'd love to hear from you. If you have a question or comment regarding this or any of our other topics, give me a call right now at 1-800-684-3110. There's a lot of you who are watching on YouTube.

Feel free to put in your comment there as well. But even if you're watching on YouTube or on Rumble, our favorite free speech platform, give us a call at 1-800-684-3110 because I want to hear from you. We face these challenges a lot here at the ACLJ. We're continually fighting in the courts, defending life, defending liberty.

You've heard about that as we've done it for months. We've been involved in these Supreme Court battles to defend whether it's the pro-life counselors or any of the incredible work that's happening from the pro-life community. And we get involved wherever we can. We also have an update from Pakistan we're going to get to coming up in the next segment, another ACLJ.

If you want to say, uh, justice has been served somewhat. That's what's happening in Pakistan. Thanks to the work of our team internationally, the ACLJ, we're going to talk about that again coming up, but we're involved in that. We're involved in the UN battling, uh, you know, to, to support Israel in a time that may not be the number one headline right now. You know, we got outside of the school year, all of a sudden it feels like Israel's not really the top thing you're hearing about as of right now.

Uh, and maybe that's good for Israel because maybe they just need a little break in the press to actually take care of business and do what they need to get done. But all of these cases and all of the work, it's a tremendous amount of work and all needs resources. And we need to help, uh, expand our work needs to continue.

We need to continue to expand our work at the ACLJ. We can't do that without you because look, if we have a client, they don't, we don't charge them at all. You know, it is absolutely for free. All the content we put out, I mean, almost everything is available, uh, for free on our website, ACLJ.org on all of our social media platforms.

None of it is done behind a paywall. There's a lot of other organizations that do that. Again, I'm not going to call out other legal organizations or other media organizations, but sometimes people can live in a bubble because they don't get their content actually out to people whose minds and hearts can be changed. They just take it to their own audience, take it to their own church, if you will.

And that's where it lives and dies. We don't do that here. We want to make sure that we're on YouTube where thousands of people get to 400 plus thousand people subscribe. I know hundreds of thousands of those people had no idea our organization existed until the birth of YouTube until our YouTube channel over the last handful of years has become a platform for that.

And that is incredible. We want to use all those resources and we want to have the best people who know how to utilize all of those platforms, utilize the law, everything we need to do. We can't do that without you. Go to ACLJ.org, make your donation today. We are a little bit behind in the month of June and I would appreciate summertime. I know that it's tough people on vacation, but if you can financially support, do it right now and become an ACLJ champion.

If you can, that's someone who's saying, I want to dedicate every month in a recurring basis. Over 21,000 of you have become ACLJ champions and make sure if you call, tell the phone screener, you're an ACLJ champion. Maybe you'll get some priority in getting on the air. How about we do that? All right. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow.

All right. Welcome back to Sekulow. Hey, special guest popping in right now. Tulsi Gabbard, who's on the phone with us right now, obviously a Sekulow commentator, which we appreciate and hey, New York Times bestseller.

I got the book right here for love of country. I always like to promote when I can. Tulsi, welcome back to the broadcast.

Will, I wanted to pitch to you for this first segment as we head to Tulsi. There has been a lot of talk. I've seen it over the last, really the last 24, 48 hours. I think headed towards the Olympics, even things, there was some discussion coming up about sort of terrorism starting to kind of be on the rise. And we know now that there was some plots that were actually planned out and they were thwarted, thankfully, but of course it comes with some big consequences.

That's right. In three different cities, the U.S. Customs and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that's ICE as you normally know them, they busted eight Tajikistan nationals that had come in through the Southern border and were in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York. And they were concerned that there was a terror plot imminent and they were picked up by ICE. And it's obviously concerning. Tulsi, when you hear this news that eight suspected terrorists were caught, obviously coming from over the border, but they were already over the border.

They'd already made these plans, settled in, like Will said, three of our biggest cities to plot an attack. What does that make you feel? Someone I know who's serving our country has been involved in the fight against terror for a long time, I just want to get your thoughts.

No, what it makes me feel is angry, but unfortunately I can't tell you that I was surprised by this. There's two things that I'd love your viewers and your listeners to focus on as we look at this news. Number one is that none of us should be surprised that we have Islamist terrorists, whether they be from ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, or any of these other Islamist terrorist organizations here in our country. When we have an open border policy, as we do under the Biden-Harris administration, even with his recent executive order action, it is still an open border.

This is what we can expect. I've been to the border several times and seen how people are coming across our border, hoping that they get encountered by the border patrol so that they can go through, as these eight from Tajikistan did, get their white piece of papers that says they're claiming asylum and they go out anywhere in the country where they want to go. This is a major national security risk and threat that faces us all and is a direct consequence of the Biden administration's enabling and supporting the cartels. The second thing is, when we look at the FBI, we heard Director Wray, I think it was last week, pleading Congress for more money for the FBI because he's talking about this heightened domestic terrorist threat. Well, the two are directly linked, but we also need to look at where is the FBI spending their time and resources? Because you and I both know, and you guys are focused on some of these cases, where the FBI is being used to target our fellow Americans, law-abiding citizens who happen to be political opposition against Joe Biden and his administration.

We look at the peaceful pro-life protesters. We look at people exercising their right to free speech and freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and yet are being treated like criminals or even domestic terrorists and extremists by the Biden-Harris administration. We need our law enforcement to focus on those Islamist terrorist groups who actually pose a direct security threat to our country and not allow this continued abuse of power by the Biden administration to weaponize these entities and these law enforcement entities against our fellow Americans. Tulsi, one thing that we didn't hear a lot about for the past few years was ISIS.

They were decimated. Airstrikes were very effective against the group. And ever since Joe Biden has been back in office, you're starting to hear more and more about a resurgence in ISIS. And that is what the ties of this group, these eight individuals that were arrested, they are saying they had ties to ISIS. Is it concerning that ISIS may be finding a window here with the weakness of the United States on the global stage? There is a wide open window, quite frankly, and this is what happened, if you remember, early on in this presidency. Joe Biden declared an end to the quote-unquote war on terror.

Well, guess what? The Islamist terrorists, whether it be ISIS, al-Qaeda, or these other groups, they never stopped waging war against us. They're reconstituting, strategizing, continuing to spread their radical Islamist ideology to bring in more recruits into what is their ultimate goal, which is to establish an Islamist caliphate around the world. That is their goal. And it has been for hundreds of years. Just because Joe Biden declared an end to this war, doesn't mean they stopped waging war. They've been doing it this whole time. And this is what has created this wide open window, because Joe Biden and his administration let down their guard, putting us and our security and our safety at greater risk.

You want to hear from, let's hear from Christopher Wray. This is from, I think what, just a few days ago. Right.

This is just a few days ago. So you, this is what Tulsi referred to. We actually have the bites.

I want to make sure we get to play it for our audience. When I sat here last year, I walked through how we were already in a heightened threat environment. And since then, we've seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole nother level.

Yeah. Tulsi, I have a question. When you hear something like that, then you also know that they were vetted and they were able to make their way up to this level of terror plot. Is there a turning point here where you see the administration actually start taking real action?

We know that they, you know, allegedly, like you said, they, they say they close the border, whatever that means. Or are we too far gone in terms of this administration? We are very, we are very far gone.

I hate to say we're too far gone. I think, again, refocusing resources towards these, this radical Islamist terror threat that we know exists within our country is essential. You know, hearing, hearing director Wray make these statements it's, it's a little hard to take him seriously, given he is the same director who has said that Christian nationalists and white supremacists you know, that, that these are the, the greatest domestic threat that we face. When we hear President Biden say that MAGA Republicans are the greatest domestic threat to democracy you know, their, their words don't carry much weight. When we know that they are weaponizing these public institutions for their own political interests. What he is saying about this increased foreign terrorist threat, Islamist terrorist threat is true, but it's coming about as a direct result of their policies. You know, this is another reason why this election is so important.

We cannot trust these people with our safety or our freedom or our security, because when it comes right down to it, they will put their personal and political interests ahead of the interests of the country. We've got five, five months to make this change. We've got to make it happen. Tulsi Gabbard, thank you so much for joining us. Again, her book For Love of Country is out. We always appreciate her views and opinions here on the Secular Broadcast. You know, with, with this show, you get such a wide group of people come on and have commentary. And a lot of times they don't necessarily always agree with each other, but that's what we do here.

We provide you guys options. You get to actually hear from people who are there. You have someone like Tulsi who has obviously served our country in so many different ways and is now able to and is now able to come on here and have real discussions about what's happening on, whether it's our Southern border, whether it's with terrorism, whether what's happening in politics. Again, her book is out.

I encourage you to get it just because it's a, it's a good read and it's a good time, especially if you have someone who maybe is on the fence and they don't know politically where they stand right now. She is someone who has had that change. You should go take a look at her book For Love of Country, Leave the Democrat Party Behind. Thank you Tulsi for joining us. Hey, we got another segment coming up. CeCe Heil is still here. We're going to have her join us in the next segment to not only continue the discussion about the Supreme Court ruling, but also an ACLJ, you hate to say victory, but it is a victory in some ways, but just as was served in Pakistan after someone, we'll just break it down.

It's a real intense story. It's a tough listen, but I want you to join us for it. Be a part of it.

Give us a call also 1-800-684-3110. We have a full half hour coming up in the broadcast. Next segment though, I encourage you to get involved, get engaged with us right now. If you're following on YouTube, hit that subscribe button, get your comments and put in the comments right now why we take this one-minute break. Just put in the comments, not the clouds, put in the comments where you're watching from.

I'll have to read that as well. We'll be right back on second. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekula.

Welcome back to Sekula. We are going to take your calls right now. 1-800-684-3110. That's at 1-800-684-3110. To reset, we are talking about the ruling that came out of the Supreme Court this morning.

The Supreme Court essentially rejected the bid to limit the use of the abortion pill, but that's not necessarily all they did because it was a nine to zero ruling, essentially saying that the case had no legal standing and never really got to the merits of the argument, unfortunately. We do have some phone calls on that. Let's go ahead and take them. Let's go to Ann who's calling in Pennsylvania on line three. Ann, welcome. Hi guys. Thank you guys so much. You guys are awesome.

Love ACLG. Love what you're doing. You guys have been putting our party on offense for many, many, many years. You know, we as Christians, on my opinion, we've been taking it, you know, like good Christians for far too long by turning the cheeks over and over and over. And we have to stop doing that because we're talking about life. Now, as far as this Supreme Court decision was made, I don't know all the details is why I'm listening to your great show, but I'm learning that obviously, you know, there was no standing and, you know, it's like almost like preventing a new precedent from happening that anybody can go into court with any qualm, without any injury.

But the problem is, it's like, once again, as I started, the left has been on offense, and they use the courtrooms to their advantage. And then they try to take those rights away from us by shaming us and gaslighting us and making it and they're safe project, they project all the time. Now, I want to end this by saying, no one has the right to take away a life, whether it's from an abortion pill from the beginning stages, or to the night nine months in the womb.

No one has the right to do that. Now, let me throw in a little bit of standing. Standing is like, it could be my opinion looking at the details of how babies suffer pain while going through an abortion, they suffer severe pain. Okay.

And so like, but with an abortion pill, babies don't necessarily have pain, but I'm still against it. And I'm still for life from the very day of conception. And so we just have to get more on offense. You know, guys, I just love you guys. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And we really appreciate that. I think we have some really smart listeners.

And I think that's what this shows when you guys call in is you're listening intently. You're learning as well as we are what the nuances are in these legal opinions. Because again, the headline is going to read nine to zero laws and a nine to zero loss in a time where the same court that overturned Roe, it feels it feels like maybe this is the court trying to seem like, Oh, we're unbiased.

We aren't, it's not really the case here, but that's not what you're going to hear in the media. You're not going to necessarily hear them. You didn't give MSNBC some credit. They did break that down, but that is a very, most people aren't going to read that. Most people aren't going to hear what's going on.

They'll they'll hear a loss is a loss. I feel defeated, which I think a lot of people are this morning and they don't see the big picture implications. Well, and we talk a lot about lawfare on this show, whether it be the way that they use the court system to go after President Trump or whether it's the way they go after conservatives. And I think that once again, to that silver lining is that what justice Thomas was trying to point out is that we don't need more options for lawfare. We don't need to have this associational standing where a third party can go out and continue to bog down the legal system and bog down people that would have to defend themselves against that type of lawsuit if they don't have proper standing. And so to even the caller's point, and as we've talked about here, I think that is a win for the legal system.

It's unfortunate that it was the wrong client to take this case forward because they couldn't get to the legal merits, but hopefully it will put a damper on the use of the left who love to use the courts as a weapon to be able to do that in some way. That's right. CeCe Howell is going to be joining us also still. She's here in the next segment. We're going to move a little bit away from this, but if you do have a call about this, call in. We're going to take all the calls in the last segment of the broadcast, which is only in about 10, 15 minutes. 1-800-684-3110. Go ahead and get in line.

1-800-684-3110. The next situation we're going to talk about is going to take the ACLJ work to Pakistan. And again, kind of put a lowercase V victory that came out of this, but justice has been served. We're going to discuss that coming up in the next segment. It is intense.

Fair warning. We're going to discuss that coming up. And then at the end, we'll take as many calls as we can. Support the work of the ACLJ right now if you can.

Donate today at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Secula. We are going to take your phone calls coming up later in this segment, also in the next segment. So get on hold. There are a few lines open right now. So it's the perfect time to go call.

You call about the abortion pill case. You could talk about really any of our ACLJ topics. I'm happy to discuss here. Heading into this Friday coming up tomorrow. I'd love to hear from you today.

1-800-684-3110. I did want to bring our attention to an ACLJ topic, you know, the ACLJ fights around the world for the rights of Christians and for Christian families. And CC, why don't we start at the beginning for this case? Again, this is pretty intense. Those who are listening, little ears that are listening, this does involve, you know, some pretty intense violent situations. So I just want to always make sure, I know a lot of people listening with their kids, especially in the summer, that you're fully aware before we get into this. So that's your warning.

Let's go. Tell us about what this case is. As you know, we do a lot of international, you know, work on behalf of persecuted Christians, but in Pakistan specifically, we have an office there, a legal office.

And so we take these cases on. And in this case, we had our client, it's the family of a Christian man, Shazadah Shabazz. And in this situation, there were two Muslim men that just decided that they wanted his property. It's, it's, you know, a property that they think has worth and value.

And so they just decided they were going to take it. And this is a property that had been in their family for half a century. And so there, you know, there's no, there wasn't any kind of misgivings of who owned the property.

So of course there are arguments that happen. And of course the Christian man is not giving up his property. And so literally these two Muslim men go to his house and beat him up and hit him in the head with the brick and kill him, leaving behind his wife and four precious daughters. He's murdered because he won't just give these Muslim attackers his land that again, has been in his family for half a century. So in Pakistan, what's interesting is when a criminal case is brought, it's not just the prosecutor or the state that's going to go after the perpetrators.

Actually the victim, they can be represented and have an attorney that argues the case against them as well. And so that's where our office in Pakistan came in. We went and argued this case. And like you said, it's not necessarily a victory, but it is justice in that after we've argued this case, both of these men got 14 years in prison and then have to pay restitution to the family. So that is justice because again, in Pakistan, a lot of times when Christians are persecuted, you do not see any justice ever. It's a legal victory. I mean, that's what I think when you say it's hard to put a victory stamp on it when it is someone's life that was lost. And you're talking about someone going to jail for that, getting fined, the family getting money, but that is what we were looking for. That's what the ACLJ was fighting for. And as you said, this is a rarity. This is why the ACLJ needs to be involved there because most of the time, probably likely, a Christian is attacked, is murdered. This kind of thing happens. And especially if it's run by a male, as you said, a Muslim male, maybe a slap on the wrist. Right. And sometimes not even arrested.

Nothing happens. There is no justice from beginning to end. And so the fact that usually when we get involved, we can make sure that they are arrested and that there are crimes brought against them and that we do go to court and we actually receive justice.

We need a global sense of how everything works. I do see some of the comments going, how can it only be 14 years? But again, you're not talking about the United States of America here. And I will say also we're appealing that.

Okay. So because we think that the sentencing should be longer. And so we are appealing that because we're asking for a longer sentence. When you intentionally murder someone, I agree, 14 years is not long enough and our office there agrees and we are filing an appeal. And to contrast that also, because our work, we are fighting for persecuted Christians. We have Shahzad Masih who has been on death row for alleged blasphemy where it was, and we've been over this on the show, where a neighbor asked him about Muhammad and he said, I don't know, but my uncle always says negative things when he hears the name Muhammad. And they then went and got a blasphemy charge against him and he was sentenced the death penalty for that. This, if you kill a Christian man, we have to fight in court to get a sentence of 14 years and we are going to continue to fight to get an enhanced sentence there. But it does show that it's, you're up against a very big task when you are fighting for persecuted Christians in Pakistan, because they are not treated the same as the Muslim population.

That a 14 year sentence for murder is significantly more lenient than an alleged blasphemy charge against a minor who's given a death penalty. And we are still fighting in that case. The Supreme Court has heard the appeal, or has accepted the appeal rather, and it has been docketed. Their court system, the docket isn't as rigid as it is in the United States of here's your day, you will be heard. So the first docket date, they had to give a continuance essentially that it will be heard later, but they have accepted the appeal for that, that who when he was a minor at the time is now older.

He's been in jail for years on death row. And so we are still fighting in that case. We are fighting these cases to get justice for the persecuted Christians in Pakistan. Chris Yeah, and the ACLJ continues that fight.

This is not over. And the fight in Pakistan, I know again, it's sometimes hard because we get so involved in what's happening in our own country. And look, we should be, we should be focusing on the majority of the ACLJ work is certainly happening within our country. But we need to know, you need to know, as our listeners and our supporters, how broad the work is, that there is an office right now operating in Pakistan, that there are offices in Jerusalem, there are offices in Europe, in France right now that are fully operating with the same mission of the ACLJ, though, sometimes the consequences are very different.

When it comes to religious persecution here in America, yes, obviously that there that is happening, especially maybe happening more than it's been happening in a long time. But a lot of times this does not involve murder, or it doesn't involve death penalty type situations. But the ACLJ through the generous support of all of our ACLJ supporters, donors and champions, we're able to continue that work and really have worldwide reach. And we don't always focus on it because I know this show with Secula was primarily, you know, we cover what's going on in the news, we cover what's happening in the world. But you know, it is done on a more commentary base, we do tell you about the work of the ACLJ.

But I think it's always important, at least once a week to have these kind of conversations. So you understand who we are and who we aren't. In the organization, though, it's the ACLJ, the American Center for Law and Justice, we have to continue the fight for Christians, and really any sort of religious minority that is being persecuted around the world, because sometimes it's a much grimmer situation than what we have here.

Absolutely. Because like, you know, Will said, you have a 16 year old child who makes a statement that is not blasphemous at all. But then, you know, you get a mob riled up, and he has literally spent, you know, over five years in prison, and he's been sentenced to death by hanging. So we don't have that here. And what's really important to know, because of the assistance of our donors, we're able to have those offices in Pakistan. And what I want to point out and highlight again, is that without us there, without our law office there that takes these cases, and we are successful, had this happened, had the situation happened where this man was murdered, typically, again, without us there, they wouldn't have even been arrested or charged. And so we're able, because we are there, we are on the ground, we are working, we are able to, once again, you know, not claiming a victory, but at least get justice that a Christian man was murdered. And these people have to be accountable for that and hold them accountable. And that would not be happening if we were not there. Yeah, and we're there, whether it is in Pakistan, Europe, Jerusalem, whether that is here in America, obviously, we've been fighting numerous cases. And of course, you hear again, that nine to zero loss, if you will, today. Then again, the ACLJ was, we filed a part of it, but we weren't the lead in that, because the ACLJ and our team are the best of the best.

And I really do believe that. And we are very selective on the cases that we take and how we proceed forward. And we go for the win whenever possible. Obviously, you're going to lose sometimes. It's just the legal system, but we go for the win whenever possible.

And we are battling still numerous cases, whether that's her life, whether that is in Pakistan, as you said, whether that is at the UN to defend Israel, none of that happens without the support of our ACLJ donors, ACLJ champions. I'm going to ask you right now, as we head into the last segment of the broadcast, the last segment, I'm going to take as many calls as I can. I got four lines open right now. Okay.

Just being honest with you. I got two people on hold. I got four lines open right now. Give me a call.

1-800-684-3110. While we head into this next break, I want to encourage you to think about it, pray on it, support the work of the ACLJ if you can. And that support can be many different ways. You can make a donation.

Obviously, that's incredibly important. ACLJ.org, make the donation. You become an ACLJ champion. That's leveling up.

That's saying you're going to support on a monthly recurring basis. But even if you can't do that right now, however you're listening to this, unless you're listening on traditional terrestrial radio, which I know that it's not really an easier way to engage, but if you're watching or listening on a podcast or watching or listening on rumble or on YouTube or on Facebook or on ACLJ.org, engage. So subscribe, sign a petition, get involved right now.

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1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Sekulow. Look, we don't want to sound like we're just fully down here today, but I understand it can feel that way when we're talking about whether that's our situation in Pakistan, which again, again, was like I said, lowercase V victory because it is dealing with someone's murder. But again, there's some justice being served or again, sort of silver lining coming out of that nine to zero defeat on the abortion pill. Now we've obviously broke down what that all means and that it's not always how it seems. But I also want you to know is why the ACLJ is here to continue these fights and to do it correctly and do it the best of our ability.

Don't just take a case and go out to lose. Not saying there are other organizations that are out there that do that, but it feels like sometimes you should not have an abortion situation. Abortion is my opinion, by the way, no one else's. An abortion case go to Supreme Court with this court and ended up being nine to zero. Something went wrong. Someone did something wrong, did not have the right client, did not do something right.

That's just the facts. Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. Let's continue on with these phone calls. Go to Bill who's calling from Texas online for Bill. Welcome.

Hey Jay, great show. And I have an interest that when you were talking about that they're representing, you know, the patients or stuff. And I started getting into the thing about the power of attorneys. Like first, did they give them the power of attorney to act on their behalf? And cause I revoked a number of power of attorneys in situations and stuff like this. And so, uh, I guess the patients say, hey, I don't want you representing me like this and just revoke the power of attorney if it's in the contract. They may not even have it in the contract. I don't even think it got that far. There wasn't necessarily, those weren't the clients.

Yeah. There was no one in this case, there was no allegation that anybody who had been specifically harmed had any association with this plaintiff. This plaintiff was bringing it on behalf of members of other like associations who are members of their group and those people had some doctors that might be harmed. And so this court was right of saying, you can't have, and it was really Justice Thomas who said this, this idea of associational standing, like someone who's one, two, three people removed from the person who's actually harmed. You can't bring a case on behalf of someone else. You have to be the person that suffered the direct harm.

And we didn't have that there. And so again, you talk about the silver lining, Logan, and there really is silver lining in the fact that Justice Thomas and even the majority opinion, it's a nine zero opinion, is literally saying, abortionists can't bring these kinds of claims either because they're not the ones that are harmed. You have to be the one that's harmed. And they also give a nod that there, of course, there is a legal concern about MIFA Press Stone and how the FDA approved it and these restrictions that have been just kind of lifted.

And so there is kind of hope on the horizon. Again, I think the court is saying, look, you bring the right petitioner here. You bring the right person who's actually been harmed. I think there is a legal concern about this FDA approval of MIFA Press Stone.

Maybe you can find the right person. Well, and speaking of right person, as far as a client goes, we should also bring up that we have filed a cert petition at the Supreme Court in the Turco case. We've talked about it for years. It's a buffer zone case where essentially the city in New Jersey created a statute or a city regulation where you couldn't be within a certain amount of feet from an abortion clinic. And it's trying to regulate out free speech of people who are sidewalk counselors or pro-life activists around abortion clinics. And we've been fighting this for years, and we have similar cases around the country. And one of the things we do believe is that truth in the issue of abortion is the way to change minds and hearts over the issue. And at the end of the day, we will fight the legal battles.

But that's not the only thing that will change minds in this country. And this, we filed a cert petition, and we're waiting for the Supreme Court to take it. We represent the person who is harmed in this case, where it's a lady who was a counselor, sidewalk counselor, and was affected by this law, unable to exercise her freedom of speech around abortion clinics in New Jersey because of this law. And we filed a cert petition. There's some actually interesting developments on that, Cece.

Yeah. So again, these may be like technical legal developments, but you file a petition at the court saying, hey, we want you to take this case at the Supreme Court. And then the other side, which would be the city here, gets a chance to file a brief in opposition saying, these are the reasons, court, you shouldn't take that. Well, in this case, they did file a brief in opposition, but they filed it a day late because there are deadlines at the Supreme Court, just like there are in every court. And so they filed it a day late and the Supreme Court denied it. So when the Supreme Court brings this case up and actually deliberates on whether they're going to take it or not, there's not an opposition brief that they're going to read.

They're going to read our brief alone and make the decision whether they take this case. And you're exactly right. When truth is spoken on the issue of abortion and these women get to hear the truth, there is a life, that baby is a life and it can be protected and there are options and they have options.

They usually choose a different path. So we stand up for truth all the time. Absolutely. Let's go to Cameron who's calling from New York. And hey, I know a few calls are coming in. We've got three minutes. Try to screen them quicker. Let's see if we can get them up there quickly. Cameron, New York, you're on the air.

Yes. Hi. Thank you for talking about Pakistan. I'm originally a person from Pakistan.

I live in New York. And my question under false accusation of blasphemy law in Pakistan and these things in their own hands, sometimes people get, sometimes they get stoned to death. Recently a man died in Sedona, a Christian man, innocent man. Yes. And then when these cases go to the courts, I just don't understand if SELJ is there and then there's U.S. Embassy is available.

Cameron, I hate to break you up, but you're just breaking up. I think I understand what you're asking. And here's the thing, unless it's a U.S. citizen that is being stoned or put in prison for blasphemy, the U.S. Embassy is not, I mean, it's not a state department. That's not an issue that they would get involved in. Now, if it is an American, we've had those happens.

Absolutely. They will win, like Pastor Brunson was an American in prison in Turkey. And so yes, the state department gets involved, but that's why we have an office in Pakistan. We can take specific action and get justice. For Pakistani people.

That's correct. Not just for Americans. That does happen. We do, obviously, there's an American overseas in prison for their faith. We fight for them quite often. That is part of why we, the ACLU charter is to do that. But sometimes we have to have places, we have to have offices in places where they are needed.

The people themselves need the most. And that's why we are there. I want to thank everyone for listening today.

We have had a good week so far. Join us tomorrow. I'm going to encourage you right now, as we start to wrap up this broadcast to take some time when this show is over, go to aclj.org. Not only spend time looking at our incredible content, and there is great content to share, by the way, there is great audio content, video content, articles that are written by some legal experts you've heard on this broadcast today, as well as some of our commentators.

So you can do that. Go to aclj.org and our amazing staff. Look at just the incredible amount of resources that are there.

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We all feel it. If you can, if you're in the situation where you can, at any level, become an ACLJ champion. All you gotta do is scan that QR code right now, go to aclj.org slash champions. Check that little box that says, make it recurring. You'll get charged and you can cancel anytime. So again, even if it's for a few months, we appreciate it. Again, go to aclj.org. Thank you all for listening. We'll be back tomorrow with more on Sekulow.