Tag: Operation Rescue

Missouri becomes first ‘abortion-free state’: report

Ryan Foley – January 13, 2021

A pro-life group is reporting that Missouri has become the first “abortion-free state” in the U.S. after its last remaining abortion facility ceased terminating pregnancies.

Operation Rescue released a report outlining “The Status of American Abortion Facilities in 2020” last week. According to the report, “a total of 45 abortion facilities closed or halted abortions nationwide in 2020, leaving one state without an active abortion facility.”

“Reproductive Health Services Planned Parenthood in St. Louis was the last abortion facility in Missouri. It remains open, but Operation Rescue has confirmed that no abortion appointments have been available there for months, and none are available anytime in the foreseeable future. All abortion appointments are now being referred to the Fairview Heights Planned Parenthood facility across the Mississippi River in Illinois.”

Reproductive Health Services Planned Parenthood confirmed with The Christian Post that it no longer performs abortions and refers all patients seeking abortions to its new 18,000-square-foot Fairview Heights facility, which is located 16 miles away.

Planned Parenthood’s new Fairview Heights clinic performs both surgical abortions and medication-induced abortions for women in Southern Illinois and surrounding areas.

According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, Missouri has an abortion ban that would immediately go into effect should the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide be overturned. In 2019, the state passed a heartbeat bill, which would ban abortion at the point a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks gestation. Like many similar measures passed in other states, the law was quickly subject to a court challenge.

The pro-life group Americans United for Life ranked Missouri as the eighth-most pro-life state  on its “Life List 2021,” which was compiled based on a “comprehensive analysis of each state’s law and policy protections for human life from conception to natural death.” Nearby Arkansas was ranked the most pro-life state in the U.S., followed by Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Indiana, Kansas and Arizona.

https://www.christianpost.com

Pro-life activists ordered to pay Planned Parenthood over $1.2M for exposé on baby body parts scandal

Michael Gryboski – May 1, 2020

A federal judge has issued an order demanding that a group of pro-life activists who were behind a series of undercover videos taken at Planned Parenthood facilities and abortion conferences are liable for more than $1.2 million in damages.

U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California released an order Wednesday against individuals connected to the Center for Medical Progress.

At issue was an Unfair Competition Law claim brought by Planned Parenthood and the plaintiffs California Business & Professions Code.

Orrick ruled in favor of the claim, citing a jury verdict from last November that found CMP, its founder David Daleiden, and activists including Troy Newman of Operation Rescue guilty of violating several laws when investigators went undercover at Planned Parenthood facilities and events.

In addition to issuing an injunction banning those named from attending Planned Parenthood events, Orrick also found them liable for large sums of money.

This includes $1,259,370 in damages related to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, plus other damages and attorneys’ fees.

“… the illegal and fraudulent prongs of the UCL are satisfied given the jury’s verdict that defendants engaged in numerous illegal and fraudulent acts in California and emanating from California, against California-based plaintiffs and others, committed in violation of California law, Federal law, and the laws of other jurisdictions,” wrote Orrick.

In a statement released Thursday, Operation Rescue noted that Newman intends to appeal the order, arguing that he and his fellow pro-life activists did nothing wrong.

https://www.christianpost.com