{"id":1700669,"date":"2022-10-18T06:01:02","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T10:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1700669"},"modified":"2022-10-18T06:03:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T10:03:47","slug":"hearing-held-in-lawsuit-to-halt-philadelphias-funding-for-abortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hearing-held-in-lawsuit-to-halt-philadelphias-funding-for-abortions\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing Held in Lawsuit to Halt Philadelphia\u2019s Funding for Abortions"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhearing-held-in-lawsuit-to-halt-philadelphias-funding-for-abortions%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1700669&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>PHILADELPHIA, Pa.\u2014A public hearing in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-lawsuit\">lawsuit<\/a> to block the use of taxpayer money for abortions was held on Friday, Oct. 14, at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-philadelphia\">Philadelphia<\/a> Court of Common Pleas.<\/p>\n<p>The suit was filed by the Thomas More Society on behalf of Philadelphia residents. It seeks to block the city\u2019s half-million dollar donation to the Abortion Liberation Fund of Pennsylvania (ALF-PA).<\/p>\n<p>After almost three hours of arguments by lawyers in the case, Judge Joshua Roberts ended the hearing and said he would issue an order the following week.<\/p>\n<p>This complaint was filed on Aug. 16, 2022, on behalf of Philadelphia pro-life activists Charles P. Kuhar, Sr. and Theresa M. Kuhar, in response to the city\u2019s allocation of $500,000 in public funds for ALF-PA. The city of Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney,\u00a0Treasurer Jaqueline Dunn, and Controller Rebecca Rhynhart are named in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>The city made the donation Aug. 4. \u201cAbortion is health care no matter where you live,\u201d Kenney said at the time, in a statement. \u201cProviding financial support for people seeking abortions is one of the ways we will support Philadelphians in their fundamental right to bodily autonomy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After the hearing, the plaintiff\u2019s lead attorney, Thomas E. Breth, told an Epoch Times reporter: \u201cDepending upon what he puts into the order, either it\u2019s going to enjoin the Abortion Liberation Fund from spending the money, or he\u2019s going to deny our injunction. Then we\u2019ll most likely be off to the Commonwealth Court on appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Commingling of Funds an Issue <\/p>\n<p>Friday\u2019s hearing was largely focused on whether the plaintiffs have legal standing to challenge the donation.<\/p>\n<p>Breth, who is a special counsel for the Thomas More Society, said he appreciates that the judge has taken the time to listen to the oral arguments and testimony. But he disagreed with the city\u2019s arguments.<\/p>\n<p>However, Breth added that Judge Roberts also \u201cfocused\u00a0a lot on the commingling of funds, federal funds, commonwealth funds, and the city\u2019s position that these are local funds, and somehow they\u2019re free to spend local funds in their own manner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Breth said \u201cWe disagree with all of that. Once all those funds go into [the] general fund account, they all become subject to the restrictions. And that means none of those funds can be spent as public funds for abortions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit cites the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982, which states, \u2018No commonwealth funds and no federal funds which are appropriated by the commonwealth shall be expended by any state or local government agency for the performance of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-abortion\">abortion<\/a>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lead attorney for the defendant, Aimee D. Thomson, declined to be interviewed after the hearing. \u00a0Thomson is a Deputy City Solicitor for the City\u2019s Affirmative &#038; Special Litigation Unit.<\/p>\n<p> Attorney: Court Dodged Key Issue<strong><br \/><\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>Breth said he felt that the court tried to avoid talking about the key issue: the city\u2019s government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-funding\">funding<\/a> abortion. He said Philadelphia\u2019s city administration wants to show support for abortion because after the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PHILADELPHIA, Pa.\u2014A public hearing in a lawsuit to block the use of taxpayer money for abortions was held on Friday, Oct. 14, at the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. The suit was filed by the Thomas More Society on behalf of Philadelphia residents. It seeks to block the city\u2019s half-million dollar donation to the Abortion &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1898747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1700669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1700669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1898747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1700669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1700669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1700669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}