Chris Lange, FISM News
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A Colorado faith-based health clinic is challenging a state law prohibiting the distribution of a medication used to reverse chemical abortions.
Bella Health and Wellness, a Catholic healthcare clinic, has filed a lawsuit against state legislators on the grounds of religious discrimination.
Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, signed a law this month banning healthcare workers from offering progesterone medication to patients which can sometimes reverse the effects of the controversial mifepristone pill. Mifepristone blocks a woman’s natural progesterone production during pregnancy that is critical to an infant’s survival. A second drug is then used to expel the child’s body from the womb.
The law means that a woman who comes to regret her decision to abort her child will have no other option than to go through with the life-ending procedure.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit legal group representing Bella in the case, said in a press release that the law unfairly “targets clinics that have a religious duty to help all pregnant women in need, including those who decide to continue their pregnancies after willingly or unwillingly taking the abortion pill.”
“Even though progesterone has been safely used for years to promote healthy pregnancies, the Colorado Legislature has categorically denied its use for abortion pill reversal,” the release states. It further notes that the use of progesterone “for all other purposes relating to pregnancy — including natural miscarriage — remains legal” in the state.
The Colorado law denounces the use of progesterone to reverse abortions as “a dangerous and deceptive practice that is not supported by science or clinical standards,” citing guidance from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It asserts that healthcare facilities that “provide, prescribe, administer, or attempt medication abortion reversal” are guilty of “unprofessional conduct.” Providers who offer the life-saving treatment could have their licenses revoked under the new law.
“We opened Bella because of our belief that life is a precious gift from God, worthy of protection at all stages,” Dede Chism, a nurse practitioner who co-founded the clinic with her daughter, Abby Sinnett, said in the release.
“When a woman seeks our help to reverse the effects of the abortion pill, we have a religious obligation to offer every available option for her and her child,” she continued.
A judge temporarily exempted Bella Health and Wellness from the law on April 16.
U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Domenico said in his decision that the law likely infringes upon the clinic’s First Amendment rights, according to a Christian Post report.
Domenico wrote in his decision that he granted the injunction “to prevent potential irreparable injury to the plaintiffs’ patients who have already begun progesterone treatment and may have their care interrupted absent immediate injunctive relief,” according to The Colorado Sun. He surmised that the “plaintiffs are sufficiently likely to succeed on the merits of one or more of their claims.”
Sinnett, also a nurse practitioner, said that all that she and her mother want is to be able “to continue our ministry of serving expecting mothers in need, regardless of circumstance. A pregnant woman needs to know that she and her unborn child will be treated with the utmost dignity and care.”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled to preserve full access to mifepristone, including delivery by mail.
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report indicated that more than half of the 600,000 abortions performed in 2020 were chemical abortions.