Counterattacks against pro-life gains are intensifying.

In Washington State, Planned Parenthood and NARAL are scoring candidates for state office according to whether they will promise to regulate (i.e., suffocate) pregnancy resource centers.

At this very moment, the Governor of Illinois is about to sign a bill forcing pro-life physicians and pregnancy centers to refer for abortions. Pro-lifers are collecting petitions to send to Governor Rauner, begging him not to sign the bill. They will probably file a lawsuit if he signs it.

Kansas recently became the 15^th state to partly defund Planned Parenthood. No sooner was the ink dry on Governor Brownback’s signature than he was sued by Planned Parenthood. This has happened in other states also.

Since December, California law has required pregnancy centers to refer for abortions. Before the law took effect pro-life organizations had filed lawsuits—but they lost in court.

Leftist intellectuals like Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law School proclaim that our side has already lost the culture war. He advocates, therefore, that the victorious Left should treat the losers—us!—the way the Allies treated the Nazis after World War II.

They called it de-Nazification then. Today it should be called de-Christianization. Today it means: systematic ideological re-education; the silencing of dissent; the disgracing and shaming of politically-incorrect tradition and religion—all with the goal of reprogramming the culture and redefining the society.

Allow this to sink in: Tushnet and his ilk regard defenders of Judeo-Christian culture as a threat—as great a threat as the Nazis were—to civilization itself. They are seeking through legal, bureaucratic, and media manipulation to purge not just pro-lifers but anyone who doesn’t toe the leftist progressive line—fire chiefs, bakers, photographers, tee-shirt makers, even companies that question politically-motivated science agendas—from the public square, denying them livelihood, influence, and dignity.

It’s been going on for years. We hear the stories all the time—indeed, we may be so inured to hearing them that we often fail to pay attention.

A teacher I know in a public school was forbidden to show a film about prenatal development, one which he had shown his classes for many years. Instead, Planned Parenthood was invited in to teach the human reproduction unit in tenth-grade science. When the teacher tried to insert “family” and “church” into the conversation, the Planned Parenthood agent threatened to report him to the school authorities.

“The Federal Government Must Stop Catholic Hospitals from Harming More Women.” With that screaming headline, Brigitte Amiri, of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, recently launched a national search for plaintiffs. She wants to file new cases on behalf of women “denied proper emergency care during miscarriages.” She’s targeting Catholic hospitals, which will not empty a uterus if there’s a fetal heartbeat.

The ACLU has been on the warpath against the expansion of Catholic medical care for a long time. It was unacceptable that in 2011 there were 16% more Catholic hospitals than in 2001. Like the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the ACLU wants every hospital and every medical practitioner to be required to perform abortions.

In April, the ACLU’s latest sally into the courtroom on this topic was rebuffed by the U. S. District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan. A few weeks later, Amiri put out her appeal for new plaintiffs. She also filed a new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with HHS for all complaints filed against Catholic hospitals.

The same FOIA request in 2014 turned up nothing, but I’m betting Amiri will find some new cases this time. That’s a good bet because I recall hearing reports some time ago from pro-life investigators to the effect that some abortionists will begin a late-term abortion in their clinics, and instruct the patient to go to their local emergency room for follow-up care, claiming a miscarriage.

Not only does that maneuver get Medicaid to pay for the abortion (disguised as a miscarriage), but it creates a trail of “I was denied proper care” reports if the patient goes to a Catholic hospital while her baby still has a heartbeat.

The legal Left (in the name of children!) recently won a lawsuit claiming children’s constitutional rights have been violated because Obama has not taken totalitarian measures to eliminate fossil fuels. “The intractability of the debates before Congress and state legislatures . . . necessitates a need for the courts to evaluate the inaction taken by the government,” wrote the federal district court judge in Oregon.

In other words, the Constitution isn’t getting us what we want, so declare the Constitution null and void and give power to the courts instead.

When could we see a court decision wiping out freedom of conscience in Catholic hospitals citing “the intractability of the debates before Congress and state legislatures”?

Very soon, if Mark Tushnet and the ACLU get their way.