SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
September, 04 2012, 03:09pm EDT
Contact:
Joe Conn, Rob Boston or Simon Brown
Americans United Urges Appeals Court To Uphold Access To Birth Control At Washington State Pharmacies
Church-State Watchdog Says Companies Have No ‘Religious Freedom’ Right To Refuse To Fill Drug Prescriptions
WASHINGTON
Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked a federal appeals court to find that pharmacies do not have the right to opt out of filling certain prescriptions on religious or moral grounds.
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in a Washington state case, Americans United urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow state officials to enforce a rule that requires pharmacies to stock when locally demanded - and fill prescriptions for - the so-called "morning-after" pill, also known as Plan B.
"Religious freedom is for people, not corporations," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. "Pharmacies are businesses, and they should not have the right to impose religion on anyone."
The Stormans family owns Olympia-based Ralph's Thriftway and has been arguing with the state Pharmacy Board since 2007 over enforcement of rules requiring medicines in demand locally to be dispensed. The Pharmacy Board had been investigating Ralph's Thriftway for refusing to stock Plan B, but that investigation halted when the store owners filed a lawsuit.
Americans United cited several reasons in its brief why a district court decision in favor of the pharmacy should be reversed. The brief noted that the state regulations at issue strike a balance between the religious freedom of pharmacists and that of their patients because individual pharmacists may opt out of filling prescriptions, but pharmacies may not.
The brief also argues that the regulations impose little burden on religious practice and allow for the objections of individual pharmacists. The regulations are also not motivated by hostility toward religion; instead, they advance a compelling governmental interest by ensuring that patients can obtain medications in a timely manner.
"The Free-Exercise Clause of the First Amendment should [not] be used as a sword to impose the beliefs of one faith upon those who do not share the faith," the brief says. "That curtails religious freedom instead of advancing it."
The brief in Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky, filed today, was authored by Americans United Associate Legal Director Alex J. Luchenitser, and Madison Fellow Benjamin N. Hazelwood, in consultation with AU Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan. (Hazelwood is admitted in New York only, and is supervised by Khan, a member of the D.C. Bar.)
Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.
LATEST NEWS
India and Pakistan Agree to 'Full and Immediate' Cease-Fire After US Talks
India's foreign secretary said that "both sides would stop all firing and military action on land and in the air and sea."
May 10, 2025
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
U.S. President Donald Trump said on social media Saturday morning that India and Pakistan agreed to a "full and immediate" cease-fire after marathon overnight talks between the nuclear-armed neighbors, who have engaged in tit-for-tat strikes in the wake of last month's Pahalgam massacre in Indian-occupied Kashmir.
"After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASE-FIRE," the U.S. president said on his Truth Social platform. "Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar also confirmed the development, according toGeo News.
"Speaking to the media, Dar expressed gratitude to the countries that played a role in achieving the cease-fire, noting that diplomatic efforts were underway throughout the day, following which a cease-fire agreement was reached," Geo News detailed. "He specifically acknowledged the role played by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the process."
Citing Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, NBC Newsreported that the cease-fire began at 5:00 pm local time. Misri said that "it was agreed that both sides would stop all firing and military action on land and in the air and sea."
However, Drop Site News noted that blackouts and sirens were reported in northern India, near the Pakistan border, following "reports of explosions over Jammu and Srinagar hours after the U.S.-brokered cease-fire announcement."
Sources from both governments toldReuters that despite the cease-fire deal, the Indus Waters Treaty remains suspended. India withdrew from the decades-old water-sharing pact after militants attacked Hindu tourists and killed 26 people in Kashmir.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Federal Judge Halts Trump and Musk's Illegal Overhaul of US Government
The second Trump administration "has thrown agencies into chaos, disrupting critical services provided across our nation," the coalition behind the lawsuit said, welcoming the temporary restraining order.
May 10, 2025
A federal judge in California on Friday temporarily blocked what at coalition of labor unions, local governments, and nonprofits argued was "the unconstitutional dismantling of the federal government by the president of the United States on a scale unprecedented in this country’s history and in clear excess of his authority."
Since returning to office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump—aided by his so-callled Department of Government Efficiency and its de facto leader, billionaire Elon Musk—has worked to quickly overhaul the bureaucracy, even though "the president does not possess authority to reorganize, downsize, or otherwise transform the agencies of the federal government, unless and until Congress authorizes such action," as the coalition's complaint notes.
District Judge Susan Illston agreed with the groups and governments, which include the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Alliance for Retired Americans, Main Street Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, the city and county of San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore, and more.
"The president has the authority to seek changes to executive branch agencies, but he must do so in lawful ways and, in the case of large-scale reorganizations, with the cooperation of the legislative branch," wrote Illston in a 42-page decision. "Many presidents have sought this cooperation before; many iterations of Congress have provided it. Nothing prevents the president from requesting this cooperation—as he did in his prior term of office."
"Indeed, the court holds the president likely must request congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime," said the judge, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by former President Bill Clinton.
Illston added that "a temporary restraining order is, by definition, temporary. The court will not consider defendants' request for a stay of execution of the temporary restraining order, as doing so would render the exercise pointless. The court must promptly proceed to consideration of a preliminary injunction."
Welcoming the development in a late Friday statement, the plaintiff coalition said that "the Trump administration's unlawful attempt to reorganize the federal government has thrown agencies into chaos, disrupting critical services provided across our nation."
"Each of us represents communities deeply invested in the efficiency of the federal government—laying off federal employees and reorganizing government functions haphazardly does not achieve that," the coalition added. "We are gratified by the court's decision today to pause these harmful actions while our case proceeds."
The "largest and most significant challenge to Trump's authority to remake the government without congressional approval," as the coalition called it, was filed April 28 by the organizations' legal team: Democracy Forward, Altshuler Berzon LLP, Protect Democracy, Public Rights Project, and State Democracy Defenders Fund.
Illston's decision came just hours after an emergency hearing, during which coalition attorney Danielle Leonard "said the Trump administration's vision was to fundamentally degrade the services that Congress funds agencies to carry out, raising a profound separation of powers conflict," according toThe New York Times.
As the newspaper detailed:
"There's a presumption of regularity that used to exist with respect to the government's actions that I think they need to re-earn," she said.
Ms. Leonard said the Trump administration has never been able to point to any specific authority through which the president could seize that power from Congress. And she said that the government has consistently offered competing and contradictory explanations of why Mr. Trump can authorize the massive restructuring without Congress.
"It's an ouroboros: the snake eating its tail," she said.
Signaling a desire to keep moving through the process swiftly, Illston gave the plaintiff coalition until next Wednesday to file a motion for a preliminary injunction, and the federal defendants—Trump along with various federal agencies and their leaders—until the following Monday to respond, with a limit of 25 pages for both.
Even if the coalition's lawsuit ultimately succeeds, Republicans have a narrow majority in both chambers of Congress, meaning Trump could potentially work with lawmakers to pursue a similar gutting of the federal government before the midterm elections.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Warning of Grave Threat to Free Speech, Judge Frees Rümeysa Öztürk
"There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed," U.S. District Judge William Sessions III said, referring to Öztürk's article urging divestment from Israel.
May 09, 2025
Rümeysa Öztürk, one of several pro-Palestine scholars kidnapped and imprisoned by the Trump administration under its dubious interpretation of an 18th-century law and a Cold War-era national security measure, was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody Friday following a federal judge's order.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions III in Vermont ruled that Öztürk—a 30-year-old Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University in Massachusetts and Fulbright scholar—was illegally detained in March, when masked plainclothes federal agents snatched her off a suburban Boston street in broad daylight in what eyewitnesses and advocates likened to a kidnapping and flew her to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana.
"Thank you so much for all the support and love," Öztürk told supporters outside the facility following her release.
The government admits that Öztürk committed no crime. She was targeted because of an
opinion piece published in Tufts Daily advocating divestment from Israel amid the U.S.-backed nation's genocidal assault on Gaza and its apartheid, occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonization in the rest of Palestine. Öztürk was arrested despite a U.S. State Department determination that there were no grounds for revoking her visa.
"There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed," said Sessions, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. "That literally is the case."
BREAKING: a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately release on bail Rumeysa Ozturk, a Muslim grad student at Tufts University who was abducted and abused by ICE agents, all because she wrote an editorial, yes, an editorial, critical of the Israeli government's genocide.
[image or embed]
— CAIR (The Council on American-Islamic Relations) ( @cairnational.bsky.social) May 9, 2025 at 11:12 AM
"There is no evidence here as to the motivation, absent consideration of the op-ed, so that creates unto itself a very significant substantial claim that the op-ed—that is, the expression of one's opinion as ordinarily protected by the First Amendment—form the basis of this particular detention," the judge continued, adding that Öztürk's "continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of people in this country who are not citizens."
"There is absolutely no evidence that she has engaged in violence, or advocated violence, she has no criminal record," Sessions noted. "She has done nothing other than, essentially, attend her university and expand her contacts in her community in such a supportive way."
"Her continued detention cannot stand," he added.
The Trump administration has openly flouted judge's rulings—including a U.S. Supreme Court order—that direct it to release detained immigrants. Sessions' Friday ruling follows his earlier order to send Öztürk to Vermont and Wednesday's 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmation of the judge's directive, both of which have been ignored by the administration.
Seeing that Öztürk was still in ICE custody hours after his order, Sessions reiterated his directive Friday afternoon.
"In light of the court's finding of no flight risk and no danger to the community, petitioner is to be released from ICE custody immediately on her own recognizance, without any form of body-worn GPS or other ICE monitoring at this time," the judge wrote.
Mahsa Khanbabai, Öztürk's attorney, toldCourthouse News Service she's "relieved and ecstatic" that her client has been ordered released.
"Unfortunately, it is 45 days too late," Khanbabai lamented. "She has been imprisoned all these days for simply writing an op-ed that called for human rights and dignity for the people in Palestine. When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?"
The Trump administration has dubiously invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the president to detain dor deport citizens of countries with which the U.S. is at war, in a bid to justify Öztürk's persecution. The administration has also cited the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which empowers the secretary of state to order the expulsion of noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests.
"When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?"
Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who lied about Öztürk supporting Hamas—has used such determinations to target people for engaging in constitutionally protected speech and protest.
"We do it every day," Rubio said in March in defense of the policy. "Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas."
Rubio has invoked the law to target numerous other students who the government admits committed no crimes. These include Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Yunseo Chung—all permanent U.S. residents—as well as Ranjani Srinivasan and others. Far-right, pro-Israel groups like Betar and Canary Mission have compiled lists containing the names of these and other pro-Palestine students that are shared with the Trump administration for possible deportation.
Foreign nationals—and some U.S. citizens wrongfully swept up in the Trump administration's mass deportation effort—are imprisoned in facilities including private, for-profit detention centers, where there are widespread reports of poor conditions and alleged abuses.
These include denial of medical care, insufficient access to feminine hygiene products, and rotten food at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where Öztürk—who, according to Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), has received no religious or dietary accommodations and had her hijab forcibly removed—is being held.
Öztürk also suffers from asthma and told Sessions via Zoom Friday that her attacks have increased behind bars due to stress. Dr. Jessica McCannon, a pulmonologist, testified that Öztürk's asthma appears to be poorly controlled in ICE custody, according to
courtroom coverage on the social media site Bluesky by freelance journalist Joshua J. Friedman.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was among those who on Friday demanded Öztürk's immediate release, while other lawmakers and human rights and free speech defenders celebrated Sessions' decision.
"Rümeysa Öztürk has finally been ordered released," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said on social media. "She has been unlawfully detained for more than six weeks in an ICE facility in Louisiana, more than 1,500 miles away from Somerville. This is a victory for Rümeysa, for justice, and for our democracy."
In the United States, we guarantee free speech. No one here will lose their rights and freedom for publishing an op-ed. This is a win for the rule of law. Rümeysa is free!
[image or embed]
— Representative Becca Balint ( @balint.house.gov) May 9, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement that "it is unfathomable that in the United States legal system, it takes 45 days for a judge to rule that people can't be put behind bars for writing op-eds the government doesn't like."
"Without a system committed to its principles, the Constitution is just words on paper, and they don't mean much if this can happen here," Stern continued. "Öztürk's abduction and imprisonment is one of the most shameful chapters in First Amendment history."
"We're thankful that Judge Sessions moved it one step closer to an end and we call on the Trump administration to release Öztürk immediately and not attempt to stall with any further authoritarian nonsense," he added.
Amid President Donald Trump's defunding threats and pressure from ICE officials, universities have told "many hundreds" of international students that they have lost their immigration status and must immediately self-deport. These notifications were based on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) termination of students' records on the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a database used by schools and authorities to access visa information.
Although DHS admitted in court that it had no authority to use SEVIS to revoke students' status, the Trump administration still canceled more than 1,800 visas before reversing course last month pending an ICE policy revamp.
In addition to moving to deport pro-Palestine students, the Trump administration is sending Latin American immigrants—including wrongfully expelled Maryland man Kilmar Abrego García—to a notorious prison in El Salvador, and the president has repeatedly threatened to send natural-born U.S. citizens there.
As with Öztürk and other detained students, the Trump administration has dubiously invoked the Alien Enemies Act in trying to deport García and others. However, federal judges—including multiple Trump appointees—have thwarted some of these efforts.
On Friday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that Trump and his advisers are "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus as a means of overcoming judicial pushback against the administration's deportation blitz.
"Well, the Constitution is clear—and that of course is the supreme law of the land—that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion," Miller told reporters at the White House. No foreign entity has invaded the United States since Japanese forces landed in the Aleutian Islands in the then-territory of Alaska during World War II.
Critics pointed out that Miller's proposal is, in fact, blatantly unconstitutional.
"Since it appears needs to be said: The authority to suspend habeas corpus lies with Congress, not the president, and is only legal during extreme circumstances of rebellion or invasion," Democratic pollster and strategist Matt McDermott said on Bluesky. "Stephen Miller is full of shit."
It wasn't just Democrats and Palestine defenders who cheered Sessions' ruling Friday. Billy Binion, who covers "all things injustice" for the libertarian website Reason, said on social media that the government's "entire case against her is that... she wrote an op-ed."
"Hard to overstate how bleak—and frankly embarrassing—it is that the Trump administration wants to jail and deport someone for speech," he continued. "In America."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular