As our leaders and government officials make difficult decisions to help reduce the spread of the coronavirus, one state's governor is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's shutdown orders have been so drastic that the Michigan legislature has filed a lawsuit against her. And in one of her orders, Gov. Whitmer has deemed abortion clinics “essential” service providers. Why? She says they perform “life saving” work. ADF Legal Counsel Elissa Graves questions that thinking and highlights one story of truly life-saving work happening in this season. Volunteers with pro-life group Cities4Life helped a woman outside an abortion clinic in Charlotte, NC, decide to keep her child by offering to give her a free ultrasound. Graves believes that the messages like Gov. Whitmer's spread hopelessness and fear while the work of Cities4Life spreads hope.
-The Editors

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As California State University San Marcos recently learned, no public university can use mandatory student fees to effectively punish viewpoints they don't like. Writing at Campus Reform, ADF client and former Students for Life chapter president Nathan Apodaca says he decided to sue his school after it denied his club funding to bring a pro-life speaker onto campus. The reason? Well ... Apodaca wasn't really given one, which ended up playing in his favor. It turns out that the funds were withheld after "backroom deliberations," which the court determined this was a clear example of viewpoint discrimination—a clear violation of the Constitution. That victory, Apodaca says, is one that everyone can celebrate.
-The Editors

Read more at Campus Reform

While the state of Idaho gears up to defend its law protecting women’s sports, the state has also appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in another case about gender identity ideology. Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that Idaho must use taxpayer dollars to fund a body-altering surgery for a biological male inmate who identifies as a woman. While the inmate claims to suffer distress from not receiving the taxpayer-funded surgery, the state argues in part that physicians have made it abundantly clear that any such surgery would exacerbate the prisoner’s pre-existing mental health condition and go against more than four decades of U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
-The Editors

Read more at Associated Press

As COVID-19 forces Americans to stay sheltered in their homes, abortion companies are doing everything they can to keep the crisis from going to waste. As ADF Senior Counsel Denise Burke writes, abortion companies are taking advantage of an FDA loophole to expand their abortion-by-distance business model. Already a loosely overseen method, many states require an ultrasound prior to chemical abortions, but even that minimal oversight is too much for ACLU activists and online abortion retailers. But bypassing ultrasound requirements presents increased risks for women, Burke says. For example, potentially life-threatening ectopic pregnancies can go undiagnosed. Burke concludes that medical professionals, politicians, and others should ignore the chorus of abortion advocates seeking to sacrifice women’s health and safety in order to make a buck.
-The Editors

Read more at The Daily Signal