Doctors and nurses who want to help women with abortion pill reversal treatment after taking chemical abortion pills have won a permanent injunction blocking a Colorado law that prohibited the treatment.

In April 2023, Colorado enacted a law making it illegal for medical practitioners to assist women who wanted to reverse a chemical abortion after they had taken the first of two pills in the regimen. The law threatened professional discipline for practitioners who use progesterone to attempt to save the baby’s life.

Bella Health and Wellness, a Catholic pro-life clinic in Colorado represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, challenged the law in federal court.

On August 1, they won a permanent injunction blocking the law’s application to them. They had previously won a temporary injunction in October 2023.

“Colorado tried to deprive pregnant women of the life-affirming care that is best for them and their babies,” Bella Health co-founders Dede Chism and Abby Sinnett said in a press statement. “We are overjoyed that the court has recognized our constitutional right to continue offering this support to the many women who come to our clinic seeking help.”

During the course of the legal proceedings, 16 babies’ lives have been saved, Becket Fund Senior Counsel Rebekah Ricketts told MinistryWatch.

This case is the first court decision in the country to recognize the religious protection for doctors and nurses administering progesterone for abortion pill reversal, Ricketts said.

The lead holding in the case, Ricketts noted, is that the state can’t treat religious activity worse than it treats secular activity.

In this case, Colorado singled out and prohibited the use of progesterone for abortion pill reversal, but allows its off-label use for “gender-affirming” care.

Citing the 2021 decision in Tandon v. Newsom, U.S. District Judge Daniel D. Domenico wrote, based on the application of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise clause, “Strict scrutiny also applies where a law prohibits conduct that substantially burdens religious activity but permits secular activity that undermines its asserted interests in comparable ways.”

The court held that it is clear the doctors and nurses at Bella Health are motivated by their “sincere religious beliefs” and obligation to protect life in administering the progesterone treatment to reverse chemical abortions.

Because the Colorado law burdens the “sincerely held religious beliefs” of the Bella Health nurses and doctors, the state must prove that it had a “compelling state interest” in regulating the abortion pill reversal practice. The court found that the state did not meet its burden.

“[W]hile the clinical efficacy of abortion pill reversal remains debatable, nobody has been injured by the treatment and a number of women have successfully given birth after receiving it. The Defendants have thus failed to show that they have a compelling interest in regulating this practice,” Domenico wrote in his order.

While the injunction is technically limited to the parties in the case because of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting injunctions, it practically would apply to any religiously-motivated practitioners in Colorado who want to administer progesterone for abortion pill reversal, Ricketts said.

Ricketts also hopes the judge’s reasoning and decision will guide other courts around the country who might encounter the same issue. Cases involving abortion pill reversal are currently pending in California and New York.

Colorado has until September 1 to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Trans rights activists insist that kids as young as 3 know their gender. That would mean there must be some genetic marker that determines whether a child is non binary. A long time ago an article in Time magazine (when it was still readable) genetic scientists speculated that one day personality traits could be determined from fetal DNA. They cited predispositions toward homosexuality and criminal behavior as examples.
IF there's really such things as a non binary gene, or a "gay gene" or a "mean gene" they will eventually be discovered. When that happens all the moralizing and pontificating about medical ethics will not prevent someone from letting the cat out of the bad, for the right price.
Then, it will only be a matter of time before a woman seeks an abortion only because her Dr told her the "unviable tissue mass" she's carrying may turn out gay. Or trans. Or a serial killer. Or any combo. Then let's see how fast pro choicers turn into pro lifers.

...16 babies’ lives have been saved,...

Praise the Lord!!

Zechariah 4:10

"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin."

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