Categories
Uncategorized

What This Week’s Supreme Court Decision Really Means

By Renee Carlson, General Counsel, True North Legal

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in State of Idaho v. United States of America. At issue in this caseis Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, which makes nearly all elective abortions illegal in the state of Idaho. The Biden administration challenged the law claiming the Emergency Labor And Medical Treatment Act (EMTALA) – a law that was “enacted in response to widely publicized reports of emergency care providers transferring indigent patients from one hospital to the next while the patients’ emergency medical conditions worsened” —

forces emergency room doctors to perform abortions and overrides state laws like Idaho’s Defense of Life Act. Yet there is no reference to abortion in EMTALA, and no implications that providing medical treatment also mandates hospitals provide abortions, while the term “unborn child” is included in the EMTALA statute. Moreover, the Court’s clear precedent in Dobbs is that the legality of abortion is now left to the states to decide.

True North Legal, along with our colleagues at Kansas Family Voice and Cross Castle filed an amicus brief in this case in support of Idaho, representing Minnesota Family Council and twenty-five other family policy organizations across the country who are dedicated to protecting and defending life-affirming laws across the country.

I also had the privilege of being in the Court watching oral arguments and can attest firsthand to the Biden administration’s reliance on novel legal theories about EMTALA, conflating unfettered access to elective abortion on demand with treatment for pregnancy-related emergency medical conditions such as ectopic pregnancies. This false and confusing narrative is consistent with the fearmongering of national and local abortion activists and Planned Parenthood, including in Minnesota. Here, local activists and legislators proffered the same misinformation about the necessity of abortion hoping that fearmongering would win the day, in a failed effort by many legislators in the Democratic party to pass a so-called state Equal Rights Amendment, which would add abortion up until birth to the Minnesota Constitution. 

Ultimately, the Court did not address the merits of the case, and sent it back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for further consideration. In other words, this case is not over and we can have hope in that outcome. As Idaho’s Chief of Constitutional Litigation and Policy Josh Turner, who argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, aptly remarked about the decision, “…We forced the Biden administration to make major concessions before the Supreme Court that it did not want to make, and those concessions are going to save many unborn lives. The people of Idaho should not be fooled by the misleading headlines in the media. Instead, I encourage everyone to read the court’s opinions for themselves. The court may have decided to ‘punt’ today on the merits given the Biden administration’s ‘important’ and ‘critical’ concessions, but I have zero doubt after reading the decision, after standing before the justices and answering their questions, and after listening to the DOJ’s best arguments to defend the Biden administration’s legally untenable position, that Idaho’s Defense of Life Act is not preempted by EMTALA and will be vindicated in full.”

While much is left to be decided in State of Idaho v. United States of America, we can celebrate the Court’s unquestionable affirmation of conscience protections for doctors in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, stating “EMTALA does not require doctors to perform abortions or provide abortion-related medical treatment over their conscience objections…” In other words, a physician cannot be compelled to abandon their oath to do no harm or be forced to violate their conscience by performing an abortion.

Please continue to pray for this significant case and the other legal battles in our state and across the country in the continued fight to protect life. We can assure you that at True North Legal we will unapologetically continue to support life and defend justice for women and preborn children in Minnesota by educating the public, and advocating for them in the legislature and in the courts. As I shared with you last week, the prolife movement is bigger than one day at the U.S. Supreme Court—we have the long view in mind. 

Categories
Uncategorized

While We Are Disappointed in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, All Hope Is Not Lost

By Renee K. Carlson, General Counsel, True North Legal

Just yesterday in a unanimous decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine which includes pro-life doctors and other pro-life organizations lacked Article III standing, the legal requisite necessary for the Court to decide the case on the merits — the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) unlawful regulatory actions regarding the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone. Thus, at least for now, the FDA will not be held accountable for unlawfully removing many common sense health and safety standards for high-risk abortion drugs such as: simply requiring an in person doctor visit for prescribing this dangerous abortion drug, reporting requirements, and making the high-risk abortion drug available for women and girls via tele-health. So perilous chemical abortions will remain available under the FDA’s expanded access to mifepristone without many common sense guardrails for the abortion drug.

One practical implication of the abortion industry’s reckless disregard for safety is the lack of screening for prior complications like ectopic pregnancy and other pregnancy related conditions which puts women in danger and serious risk of medical complications. This is not hyperbole. When I spoke at the U.S. Supreme Court back in March of this year in support of the plaintiffs and pro-life doctors in this case, I heard heart wrenching stories of women and girls taking these drugs — left alone to perform their own abortions on a cold chilled bathroom floor. Some women shared that the emotional distress of being left along while losing a child was even more damaging than the physical suffering induced by medical complications of abortion drugs.

To be clear, abortion is not healthcare! Our amicus brief in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade, catalogues the lies and harms that the abortion industry has perpetrated against women and girls for nearly half a century. To that point, yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision does not change the fact that according to the FDA’s own label, one in twenty-five women who choose to take dangerous abortion drugs like mifepristone will end up in the emergency room due to medical complications. The abortion industry must come clean for its culpability of harming women and girls by refusing to be transparent about the risks of taking abortion drugs. It should not take a U.S. Supreme Court decision to compel their honesty.

However, the Court was very clear that “federal conscience laws definitely protect doctors from being required to perform abortions or to provide other treatment that violates their consciences.” (emphasis added). Thus implying conscience protections beyond the abortion context. Even more specifically, the Court stated that “EMTALA does not require doctors to perform abortions or provide abortion-related medical treatment over their conscience objections…” In other words, a physician cannot be compelled to abandon their oath to do no harm or be forced to violate their conscience. Based on this statement we have much hope as we anticipate another significant U.S. Supreme Court decision by the end of June in Idaho v. United States. (True North Legal and Kansas Family Foundation submitted an amicus brief in this case, read it here.) In this case, Idaho passed the Defense of Life Act, making nearly all elective abortions illegal in the state of Idaho. In applying a novel interpretation of a federal law that has been on the books for forty years, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), the Biden administration now claims this law forces emergency room doctors to perform abortions and overrides state laws like Idaho’s Defense of Life Act. This, despite the Court’s clear precedent in Dobbs that abortion decisions are now left to the states to decide.

Despite our disappointment in this decision, I am just as encouraged if not more so about the pro-life movement than I was the on March 24, 2024, when I spoke about our pro-life movement at the U.S. Supreme Court. As I shared in my rally speech, our movement is bigger than one day at the U.S.Supreme Court. Across the nation and in Minnesota, I know that the abortion industry will never outmatch our our love, our courage, and our support for women, girls, and preborn children. All hope is not lost! In the words of the great prophet Jeremiah, “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him.” Lamentations 3:25. Let us be people that seek the Lord and in turn point others to healing and hope in Christ, like women and girls who have been duped by the abortion industry.

Categories
Life

Defending Life at the Supreme Court

Today, Renee Carlson of True North Legal is attending oral arguments at the Supreme Court of the United States for Idaho v. United States, a case which will likely determine whether the federal government will be allowed to use EMTALA, a federal law guaranteeing emergency medical care, to force states to perform abortions. Watch Renee Carlson discuss the case base below, then read the Amicus brief we filed with allies in this case.

Read the brief filed by True North Legal and CoCounsels Here

If you support the work of True North Legal to defend life, family, and religious freedom, will you consider supporting us financially?

Categories
Uncategorized

Renee Carlson & Vice President Mike Pence Deliver Remarks in Support of Parental Rights at True North Legal Event

True North Legal’s General Counsel Renee Carlson welcomes Vice President Mike Pence to Minneapolis to speak about a parental rights case being heard in the 8th Circuit in St. Paul today. Vice President Pence gives remarks on parents’ rights and the role of families in the restoration of our nation. University of St. Thomas law professor Teresa Collett closes by emphasizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings on parents’ fundamental rights to bring up and educate their children. Watch here.

Categories
Uncategorized

True North Legal Delivers Remarks at MOMS Press Conference

Renee Carlson of True North Legal MC’s MOMS intervention press conference. The Minnesota Moms’ group sought to reinstate Commonsense health and safety Protections for Minnesota women and young girls. Watch here.

Categories
Uncategorized

Renee Carlson Joins Upper Midwest Law Center, Discusses 2023 Legislative Session

Renee Carlson of True North Legal joins James Dickey from the Upper Midwest Law Center to discuss the legal fallout from this year’s legislative session. Watch here.

Categories
Uncategorized

Fox News Features Renee Carlson

“Renee Carlson, general counsel of True North Legal, a legal initiative of Minnesota Family Council, warned that the bill as written will ‘create confusion and increased litigation for the courts, while stripping parents of their fundamental rights, disregarding informed consent and encouraging young children on a dangerous path to serious lifelong biological and medical consequences.'”

Read the full article.

Categories
Uncategorized

Renee Carlson Provides Legal Testimony on SF 63/HF 146

Watch here.

Categories
Family Life Religious Freedom

Washington Stand Features Renee Carlson

Washington Stand writes: “Renee Carlson, general counsel for True North Legal, an initiative of the Minnesota Family Council, criticized the bill’s promotion of abortion and gender identity ideology. ‘Based on elusive claims about access to abortion and with insufficient public notice or debate, the Minnesota legislature and Walz administration created one of the most extreme abortion regimes in the country. Minnesota’s newly elected Democratic trifecta created a fundamental right to abortion by repealing, and thus removing, nearly all health and safety protections in civil and criminal law regulating abortion, impacting women and young girls.’

She continued, ‘Other provisions in the bill reflect an aggressive push by the newly elected majorities in the House and Senate, in concert with Governor Walz and his administration, to force aggressive gender ideology and gender policies on all Minnesotans.'”

Read full article: https://washingtonstand.com/commentary/minnesota-lawmakers-push-abortion-and-gender-ideology-with-passage-of-800page-omnibus

Categories
Family Life Religious Freedom

Renee Carlson on Upper Midwest Law Center Podcast

Renee Carlson joined James Dickey of Upper Midwest Law Center to discuss the rapid pace of policy change in Minnesota.

Click here or on the thumbnail above to watch the full episode.