(LifeSiteNews) — Colorado taxpayers will pay $5.4 million to a pro-life medical clinic targeted by the state for offering the hormone progesterone to women to help them potentially stop an abortion pill from killing their baby. The state will pay out another $700,000 to settle a lawsuit from a licensed nurse practitioner.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented Bella Health and Wellness, will be paid millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees to resolve the lawsuit.
“A federal court found that Colorado’s attempt to ban abortion pill reversal violated the First Amendment,” Becket Fund wrote in a news release. “A federal law now requires the state to pay attorneys’ fees and court costs.”
The clinic “offers progesterone to these women who seek help to keep their unborn children after taking the first abortion pill,” which may stop the abortion process. This is often called “abortion pill reversal.”
The process has some success – Becket Fund notes that 18 babies were born during the lawsuit thanks to the successful reversal of the abortion pill.
“At least 18 moms who received abortion pill reversal care at Bella just celebrated Christmas with babies born during this case,” Rebekah Ricketts, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for Bella Health and Wellness, stated in the news release. “All Coloradans should celebrate those little miracles and the brave medical team at Bella that helped their moms when no one else would.”
Democrat Gov. Jared Polis signed into law SB23-190, allegedly to address the so-called “deceptive trade practice [of] pregnancy related service[s]” that specialize in life-affirming alternatives to abortion, LifeSiteNews previously reported.
Legal groups, including the Alliance Defending Freedom, soon after filed successful lawsuits against the bill.
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ADF represented “licensed nurse practitioner and certified nurse midwife Chelsea Mynyk” in her challenge to the law. As a result, the state will also pay $700,000 in attorneys’ fees to the Christian religious liberty group.
“Government officials can’t silence medical professionals and prevent them from saving lives,” ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot stated in a news release.
“Many women regret their chemical abortions, and some choose to reverse the effects of the first abortion drug, which can save their baby’s life,” Theriot said. “But Colorado’s law wrongly attempted to deny women the freedom to make that choice. We’re pleased Chelsea and the other pro-life plaintiffs in this suit are allowed to get back to their life-saving work of helping women and children.”
Last August, a federal judge struck down Colorado’s law.
The abortion pill mifepristone (better known as RU-486) works by blocking the natural hormone progesterone that developing babies need to survive. APR consists of administering extra progesterone to counteract mifepristone’s effects, ideally within 24 hours of taking the abortion pill.
Pro-abortion detractors claim that APR is unproven and potentially harmful, but as pro-life OB/GYN Dr. William Lile has explained, the technique is based on principles that are well understood from progesterone’s common, FDA-approved use in a variety of other pregnancy-related situations.
According to the Abortion Pill Rescue Network (APRN), “initial studies of APR have shown it has a 64%-68% success rate.” Heartbeat International also publishes anecdotal, firsthand testimonials from women who have benefited from the technique.
This is the latest religious liberty victory for Christian groups against Colorado and Governor Jared Polis. Though often hailed as a libertarian by publications like Reason, Polis regularly uses the state to harass people who oppose his own agenda.
A homosexual who is “married” to a man, Polis sided with state officials in their ongoing harassment of Christian baker Jack Phillips, who declined to bake a cake for a so-called gay “wedding.”
Colorado officials also tried to force a Christian camp into letting gender-confused men shower next to girls.
The state continued its attacks on religious liberty by rejecting a Christian preschool from a funding program because the school recognizes biological reality.
While Polis claimed abortion pill reversal is unscientific, he continues to support the surgical and chemical mutilation of gender-confused children, despite mounting evidence that it is dangerous. Furthermore, common sense and biology prove that boys cannot become girls, and vice-versa.