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  OVERVIEW

Since being founded in 1990, the ACLA has many victories to its record on behalf of faithful Catholics seeking just liberty to practice their faith and follow the dictates of conscience.

The following are a few examples of the work done by the ACLA in defense of innocent Catholics who are being unjustly persecuted, harassed or impeded in the practice of their Catholic faith and in matters of conscience:

bullet When a pro-life mother with ten children was hauled into federal court by the New York attorney general for “contempt” of an injunction, based on nothing more than a sidewalk encounter with an angry woman in front of a Planned Parenthood facility, the ACLA defended her successfully at the contempt proceeding. 

Planned Parenthood’s witness was destroyed on cross-examination, and the federal judge threw out the contempt citation, warning the attorney general’s office to make sure it had a better case before it came to his court again. 
 
bullet When the same pro-life mother was then indicted on criminal charges arising from the same incident, the ACLA defended her at the criminal trial and won an acquittal.  This courageous pro-life mother of ten is now also saving babies without any further interference from Planned Parenthood.
 
bullet When a Jesuit priest was fired as a military chaplain for being too Catholic to suit the Protestant minister who ran the interfaith chapel on an army base, the ACLA filed a federal lawsuit and obtained an immediate settlement for the priest.
 
bullet When a staunch Catholic student was discharged from a physician’s assistant training program only a few credits short of graduation because he refused to condone contraception and abortion, the ACLA intervened, vowed to bring a civil rights lawsuit, and obtained our client’s immediate reinstatement to the program. 

Upon graduation shortly thereafter, our client sent us a note which is all the payment we need:  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
 
bullet When a Catholic nurse in Wisconsin was fired from a so-called Catholic facility for the mentally disabled because she refused to instruct the residents on contraception and how to masturbate, the ACLA filed a federal lawsuit under Title VII, defeated a motion to dismiss by the facility’s lawyers, and obtained a financial settlement.
 
bullet When a pro-life activist in Rochester, New York, was saddled with a federal court injunction creating expanded “bubble zones” around an abortion mill where her presence was forbidden and prohibiting her from using sound amplification that could allow her to be heard, the ACLA appealed that decision to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. 

The Court of Appeals threw out the expanded bubble zones and the order prohibiting sound amplification, allowing our client to go on saving babies at the Planned Parenthood abortuary in Rochester. 
 
bullet When a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Oregon obtained an outrageous $109 million verdict against a group of pro-life activists and organizations, the ACLA argued successfully for reversal of the verdict.  Although the verdict has since been reinstated by a narrow vote of 6 – 5, we are on our way to United States Supreme Court for the second time in this case and hope to prevail.  
 
bullet When another pro-life activist was arrested, carted off to jail, and charged with “obstructing traffic,” the ACLA represented her in criminal court and obtained another acquittal.

The ACLA then filed suit on her behalf for false arrest and obtained for her a very large financial settlement.  Since then, whenever the police come to harass her and they learn who she is, they immediately back away and leave her alone. 
 
bullet When Planned Parenthood tried to get an injunction against a pro-life activist in York, Pennsylvania, who was hurting their business, the ACLA defended her, fought Planned Parenthood to a standstill, and finally prevailed when Planned Parenthood dropped the entire lawsuit.
 
bullet When the Borough of Seaside Heights, New Jersey, confiscated the pro-life signs of our clients and threatened them with arrest, the ACLA brought a federal lawsuit and obtained an immediate settlement in which the town promised never to interfere with our clients’ First Amendment activities again. 
 
bullet When a Catholic father whose wife left him was saddled with a court order forbidding him to expose his son to the Catholic religion, the ACLA filed an appeal in the Nebraska Supreme Court, which threw out this restriction.
 
bullet When a pro-life pregnancy counseling center was being harassed by New York’s attorney general with subpoenas and threats of lawsuits for “unauthorized practice of medicine,” we moved to quash the subpoena.  After our motion and briefs were filed, the attorney general withdrew the subpoena and stopped harassing our client.

 

 


 



 


 



 


 

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