New York official blocks Texas order against doctor who mailed abortion pills into state

South Dakota’s Governor Kristi Noem arrives to speak during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting on Feb. 23, 2024, in National Harbor, Maryland. / Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 28, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

A prominent pro-life group is praising South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for signing a “Med Ed” bill that it says will mandate the creation of an informational video to combat “abortion misinformation.”

According to a March 25 statement by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), the South Dakota bill is the “first legislation of its kind drafted to end the confusion caused by the abortion lobby through direct education to doctors.”

Kelsey Pritchard, SBA state public affairs director, said in the statement that “though every state with a pro-life law allows pregnant women to receive emergency care, the abortion industry has sown confusion on this fact to justify their position of abortion without limits.”

“With many in the media refusing to fact-check this obvious lie, other states should look to South Dakota in combating dangerous abortion misinformation,” she said.

The bill, passed overwhelmingly by the Republican-controlled legislature, was signed into law by Noem, who is also a Republican, on Monday. Introduced by state Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt, who is a nurse, the bill requires the South Dakota Department of Health to create an informational video describing the state’s abortion law and clarifying when “life-threatening or health-threatening” exceptions apply.

Now that the bill has been passed into law the Department of Health has until Sept. 1 to create the video and accompanying informational materials. The video and materials will be posted to the Department of Health’s website for doctors and the public to use as a reference in understanding the state’s abortion laws.

South Dakota is one of 14 states that prohibit abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. While some states allow exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and fetal anomaly, South Dakota only makes exceptions in cases where the mother’s life or health is in danger.

The ACLU of South Dakota decried the bill when it passed out of committee, saying in a Feb. 28 statement that it “gives anti-abortion activists a guise to appear to care about pregnant patients while actually passing legislation that further enshrines anti-abortion cruelty.”

Pritchard, however, said that the new informational material will help to clear up confusion on when the exception allows an abortion to take place in the state.

“Regardless of political affiliation or whether someone is pro-life or pro-choice, South Dakotans of all philosophies can celebrate that moms will be better protected through direct education to our doctors on their ability to exercise reasonable medical judgment in all situations,” she said.

According to SBA, Kentucky and Oklahoma have also taken steps to clarify their abortion exceptions and the Texas Medical Board is currently considering issuing a clarification to its life of the mother exception.

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Indianapolis, Ind., Jun 15, 2017 / 05:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Advocates for Chaldean Christians detained by federal immigration enforcement are in a race against time to halt their deportation back to war-torn Iraq.

“Today is also the feast of the Body of Christ. And this is where the Body of Christ is in pain, and it turns to the Body of Christ for healing,” Bishop Francis Kalabat of the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle of Detroit told CNA on Thursday, the feast of Corpus Christi.

“Today we are carrying our crosses, and those crosses are real,” he continued June 15. “And with every cross we have our Good Friday, but trusting in God we will also have our Easter Sunday.”

Beginning last Sunday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested dozens of Chaldean Christians in the Detroit metropolitan area, and most were quickly sent to detention at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio. Some were taken from their homes in front of their families, and others were reportedly arrested in public places like restaurants.

An estimated 106 Iraqis have been arrested so far, Bishop Kalabat said, “the vast majority of them Chaldean Christian,” though there are reportedly Muslims among the detained.

ICE explained in a statement that the Chaldeans had previous criminal records including convictions for homicide, rape, and aggravated assault, had been ordered for removal by a federal judge, and were being deported to Iraq as part of an agreement between the U.S. and Iraq.

They entered the U.S. legally, some of them decades ago, with an eventual path to citizenship, but since then those who committed felonies would not have a legal path to citizenship.

Many of the crimes were committed decades ago, in the 1980s and ’90s, Bishop Kalabat said, with one case “literally 30 years ago.” That man “did his time [in prison], paid the price, has cleared his name,” and is now married with four children.

Some of the detainees may have recent criminal records and be a threat to public safety, the bishop noted, and if that is the case they should be detained.

He maintained, however, that many of those detained have long been responsible, law-abiding residents.

Chaldeans are native to Iraq and the population has been Christian almost since Christianity began. Detroit is one of the largest Chaldean diaspora communities in the U.S., where an apostolic exarchate was created in 1982. An estimated 30,000 Iraqi refugees have been settled in Michigan since 2003.

The church and the community have been working feverishly to halt the deportation of the Iraqis. Prayer vigils have been taking place this past week in the community, Bishop Kalabat said.

Martin Manna, president of the Chaldean Community Foundation, told CNA on Wednesday that advocacy for the plight of the detainees has reached the highest levels of government. The U.S. bishops have written a letter to the Vice President asking for a halt to the deportations, he added.

“Hardened criminals” make up a “very small percentage” of the detainees, he insisted.

The Knights of Columbus have written Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly on the matter, and several members of Congress – Reps. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), and John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) — wrote Secretary Kelly as well.

The detainees “will be placed in great danger if deported to Iraq,” they insisted, noting that the State Department declared in 2016 that Christians in Iraq and Syria faced genocide at the hands of the Islamic State. They continue to be threatened by the Islamic State and other terror groups.

“Because of the horrors perpetrated against the Catholic Chaldean population in Iraq, these individuals could be stranded in a country in which they are subject to extreme jeopardy,” the letter said.

Furthermore, many of the detainees may have no families or connections in Iraq given how long they have lived in the U.S., the members wrote.

“Until we in Congress can review all aspects of the agreement reached with Iraq, and the referenced safety measures, we urge you to hold off removal of these individuals to Iraq,” the members stated.

Detainees must not be deported without due process, Manna insisted, saying that sending them back to a country with an active war zone like Iraq is inhumane.

“The law is really on their side,” he said of the detainees, who have had clean records for at least ten years. They served their time in prison and “paid their debt” to society, he said, and should not be deported without due process as federal judges had ruled long ago they could be removed.

Furthermore, sending these detainees back to Iraq while it is an active war zone could violate the International Convention Against Torture, he added.

“The U.S. also bears responsibility” to rectify the problem, he told CNA, as the American-led 2003 invasion of Iraq precipitated a massive exodus in Christians from the country, from a population of 1.5 million in 2003 to under 300,000 now.

“The administration has committed itself to helping Christians,” Bishop Kalabat said, but if Christians who committed crimes decades ago and have “turned the corner” are being deported, “it doesn’t make sense.”

Yet God suffers with his people, he continued.

“This, to me, is the greater tragedy, when we forget about giving of our lives to God and allowing God to be with us, and allowing God to speak to us, to be hurt with us.”

[…]

Long-time pro-life activist Eva Edl (left) prays in front of a Senate office building on Capitol Hill, Sept. 6, 2001 to protest US President George W. Bush’s decision to allow limited stem cell research. / Credit: MIKE THEILER/AFP via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Aug 21, 2024 / 14:14 pm (CNA).

An elderly survivor of a Soviet concentration camp and six other pro-life advocates were convicted of blocking access to a Michigan abortion clinic, the latest in a high-profile series of judgments against anti-abortion demonstrators in federal courts.

The seven defendants in the case were found guilty for their involvement in a “blockade of a reproductive health care clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan” on Aug. 27, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release on Tuesday. 

The demonstrators were convicted of both a felony conspiracy against rights and a Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act offense, the government said. Sentencing will be set at a later date. 

Kristen Clarke, an assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, claimed the pro-life activists had “orchestrated an unlawful clinic blockade and physically obstructed patients seeking access to their doctors, without regard to the serious medical needs of the women they blocked from accessing reproductive health care.”

The defendants — Calvin Zastrow, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Caroline Davis, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Eva Edl, and Eva Zastrow — reportedly staged the demonstration as part of a “Michigan Holiness Revival Tour,” one that allegedly set out with the “express purpose of blockading a reproductive health clinic,” the Justice Department said. 

The 89-year-old Eva Edl is a well-known pro-life activist and a survivor of a communist concentration camp who fled Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe.

Her biography reveals that her mother was kidnapped by the Soviets in postwar Europe after which she and her siblings were sent to communist concentration camps in Yugoslavia. She eventually escaped and emigrated to the United States.

The Biden administration has aggressively prosecuted several FACE Act cases over the last few years, handing out prison sentences to men and women who attempted to block access to abortion clinics around the country. 

Some of the activists found guilty this week, including Eva Edl, were also found guilty earlier this year of a similar abortion clinic blockade in Tennessee in 2021. Edl has yet to be sentenced for that conviction. 

Last year multiple pro-life activists were convicted under the FACE Act for an October 2020 demonstration at the Washington Surgi-Clinic run by Cesare Santangelo in Washington, D.C.

Pro-life advocate Lauren Handy, 30, was sentenced in May to four years and nine months in prison for organizing the protest. 

Several other demonstrators ultimately received prison sentences ranging from about two to three years.

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy and 25 House Republicans last year introduced a resolution to repeal the FACE Act, arguing that the Biden administration had “brazenly weaponized the FACE Act against normal, everyday Americans across the political spectrum, simply because they are pro-life.” 

Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, indicated earlier this year that he would move to release some of the convicted pro-lifers from prison if he is re-elected president in November. 

“Many people are in jail over this.… We’re going to get that taken care of immediately — [on the] first day,” he told the Faith and Freedom Coalition in June. 

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