This Thanksgiving, Celebrate the Countless Precious Lives That We All Helped Protect This Year and Give Thanks

It’s the time of year in America when we gather with loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving. As Americans we have so much to be thankful for this year – the wonderful blessings of life and liberty we enjoy on a daily basis.

The Scripture commands us in 1 Thessalonians 5:18:

In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

And yet I know with so much division and disruption taking place all around us, it might seem hard to be thankful. It’s important to pause – and reflect – on the victories we achieved this year that will save tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of innocent babies.

I think you will see Thanksgiving 2022 is very much a time to give thanks.

This year, a nearly 50-YEAR-OLD MISTAKE was finally fixed when Roe v. Wade, the infamous Supreme Court decision that manufactured a fake “right to abortion,” was finally OVERTURNED, with the help of the ACLJ and our critical amicus briefs, eviscerating the notion that abortion was somehow protected by the U.S. Constitution. Spoiler alert: It’s not.

With our help, the Supreme Court has returned this issue to the states, allowing the lives of countless innocent unborn babies to be saved. In fact, it’s impossible to even calculate how many innocent little lives may now be protected. If that alone is not an incredible reason to be thankful and celebrate, I don’t know what is.

We’ve also been telling you all along that overturning Roe was only the beginning. We warned you that abortion giants like Planned Parenthood and the abortion-worshiping radical Left would take the battle to the individual states to codify Roe into their state constitutions to make abortion on demand PERMANENT. The ACLJ didn’t stand around and watch. We’re now in a 50-state fight, and we’re already scoring big victories for unborn babies.

Two years ago Tennessee passed a law limiting abortions after a baby’s heartbeat could be detected and prohibiting doctors from knowingly performing abortions that target unborn children because of their race, sex, or Down syndrome status.

The abortion lobby along with Planned Parenthood sued Tennessee. A federal trial judge granted an injunction against the law, and a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the injunction until a majority of all active judges of the Sixth Circuit, known as the en banc panel, agreed to rehear the case and ultimately vacated the three-judge panel’s decision, lifting the injunction and allowing the state to ban abortions of children because of their race, sex, or Down syndrome status. That was great. However, the trial court’s injunction that prohibited enforcement of the heartbeat provision remained, putting unborn babies with detectable heartbeats in a dangerous position. But that’s not the end of the story.

We filed TWO amicus curiae briefs in support of the statute, available to review here and here, arguing that Tennessee should be permitted to prohibit abortion once there is evidence of a fetal heartbeat. On June 28th, the en banc Sixth Circuit AGREED with us and vacated the trial court’s injunction, meaning those babies would now be safe and given their chance to be born. What more could we give thanks for than sparing the lives of countless precious children?

In another victory to be thankful for, I along with several other senior ACLJ attorneys officially represented Governor Kristi Noem and the state of South Dakota in their battle against Planned Parenthood. Gov. Noem sought to uphold a pro-life state law which Planned Parenthood had successfully blocked in the courts.

Then came the Dobbs decision from the Supreme Court, and we were able to use that to secure a victory. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Planned Parenthood’s foolish lawsuit against the pro-life South Dakota law after Planned Parenthood couldn’t even provide a response to our legal filings, essentially realizing our argument was airtight. So they just gave up, took their ball, so to speak, and went home.

All three of these major pro-life victories were won with the help of the expert legal work of the ACLJ. And there are already other wins being scored in courtrooms across the country. I would say there is little that we should be more thankful for than knowing that the lives of tens of thousands of defenseless babies are now being protected.

Just imagine future Thanksgivings where parents are giving thanks that, by the grace of God and with the help of the work of the ACLJ, a different decision was made so that there’s another smiling face at the table.

There are many more battles ahead in the coming new year, and the ACLJ is prepared to fight them head on.  We can only do that and win the victories that we do because of the steadfast prayers and support of ACLJ members like you. Thank you.

On behalf of the ACLJ and my entire family, I wish you all a safe, Happy Thanksgiving.