Abortion Activists Waste $1 Million Taxpayer Dollars Suing Over Louisiana’s Pro-Life Laws

State   |   Dave Andrusko   |   Jun 7, 2018   |   4:46PM   |   Baton Rouge, Louisiana

If you write for a living, as I do, and read enormous amount of what passes for journalism in the “Mainstream Media,” as I do, you know that if most reporters didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all (to paraphrase the great radio talk show host Chris Plante).

If you read NRL News Today with any regularity, particularly stories from Ingrid Duran, our state legislative director, you know that while pro-lifers pass mounds of legislation, so, too (occasionally) do pro-abortionists.

Let’s say New York, under the leadership of its loony pro-abortion Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, passes one of the extreme x 10 pieces of legislation that is so dear to their hearts. And in response a pro-life public interest law firm challenges that legislation, from the minute it passes, through a myriad of legal steps up and down the legal ladder.

This could drag out for years. Such challenges often do.

What if, hypothetically, New York state had passed a series of pro-abortion laws going back to, say, 2014, and each time a pro-life public interest law firm was just as aggressive in contesting the law’s constitutionality. Guess what?

The cost to the state of New York of defending the laws would be a pretty penny. In fact, it could be enormous. Question:

Do you think the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Associated Press would make an open-records request to find out how much New York had paid out to defend their laws?

Of course not! All would be deliriously happy the Gotham State has passed these laws and it would never cross their minds how much the tab was. After all, by their lights, New York was doing the “right thing.” Who cares what it costs to defend “reproductive rights.”

Guess what? The Associated Press put a story today (I saw it in the Washington Post) under the headline, “Records: Louisiana spent over $1M defending abortion laws.”

The gist is not only has the state paid out this amount, it’ll pay more as “Louisiana fights to implement abortion policies that have been halted by the courts.” And because the state has other priorities, so (without saying so but coming awfully close) how dare Louisiana continue to defend laws to which a judge (or a series of judges) objects?

See the twisted logic? States should never pass these laws in the first place, but if they know the ACLU or the Center for Reproductive Rights will drag out the case forever and day, the state should quickly fold its legal tent once the law is contested.

In other words, the ACLU and CRR ought to have a de facto veto power over which laws the state should passes.

Of course the real objection the AP has is not the money, it is the pro-life policies themselves which the story diminishes, ridicules , and caricatures.

However, to their credit the governor (a Democrat) and the AG (a Republican) will not back off.

A spokesman for Gov. John Bel Edwards said the governor thinks the cases are worth fighting. The state’s top prosecutor said he’ll keep defending Louisiana’s laws through a combination of in-house lawyers and outside counsel.

“We will exhaust every legal option we have to ensure these laws are upheld,” Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, said in a statement, adding that the private firms have provided excellent legal services. “In Louisiana, it is clear, we will not put a price tag on an innocent, unborn child.”

The Associated Press, by contrast, has no problem either putting a price tag on the lives of innocent unborn children or smearing pro-life Louisianans.

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.