Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gettr, Truth Social, Twitter
We are nearing the end of a week filled with urgent matters. The week ahead will have even more. Here is a rundown of some of the biggest.
S.J. 4, a Resolution Proposing a State Constitutional Amendment for Late-Term Abortion and Gender Transitions (Even For Minors), will have a public hearing in the Government Administration and Elections (GAE) Committee this Monday, March 18th, at 11:30 am.
This proposed amendment is the most radical yet. It enshrines post-viability abortion, up to the moment before birth, in our state constitution. It creates a right to gender transitions, even for minors. It could mean the end of women-only sports. It threatens the religious liberty of Christian schools and hospitals.
We also need every pro-lifer in Connecticut to testify against S.J. 4 in the GAE Committee on Monday, either in Room 2B of the LOB or via Zoom. If you cannot testify verbally, please submit written testimony against S.J. 4.
The public hearing can be viewed via YouTube Live. In addition, the public hearing may be recorded and broadcast live on CT-N.com. You can register to testify using the On-line Testimony Registration Form. The registration form must contain the name of the person who will be testifying. A unique email address must be provided for each person registered to speak. Registration will close on Sunday, March 17th, at 3 pm. Speaker order of approved registrants will be listed in a randomized order and posted on the GAE Committee's website on Sunday, March 17th, at 6 pm under Public Hearing Testimony. Please submit written testimony using the On-line Testimony Submission Form. Speakers will be limited to three minutes of testimony.
We also need every pro-lifer in Connecticut to join us at the state Capitol at 12 noon on Wednesday for our state's biggest pro-life event of the year. This is our chance to speak as one voice to the challenges listed above and below. All the details about the CT March for Life itself are here.
Additionally, there are three separate worship events happening that morning at 10 am. In Hartford, there will be a Catholic Mass at the Cathedral of St. Joseph and an Evangelical Prayer Meeting at South Church. In Terryville, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church will be holding a Divine Worship Service with Holy Supper. (For the South Church event, contact House of Good Hope at [email protected]. For the Terryville event, contact Lutherans for Life at [email protected]).
Also from 9:30am to 11:30am that morning there will be a Whole Life Forum in Room 1B of the Legislative Office Building (LOB). It will focus on a consistent ethic of life as experienced in the lives of Black and Hispanic women in Connecticut.
Finally, following the CT March for Life, FIC Action will be sponsoring Advocacy 101 at 2:30pm in Room 1A of the LOB. Details here. Please join us.
Pro-Abortion Attack on Religious Freedom of Connecticut's Catholic Hospitals
On March 13th, the Public Health Committee held a public hearing on H.B. 5424, An Act Forcing Catholic Hospitals to Allow Referrals for Abortion and Gender Transitions. This bill would make it illegal for Catholic hospitals to forbid its employees from making referrals for "services" that it considers intrinsically evil. It is the biggest attack on religious liberty by our state government in fifteen years.
FIC Action president Peter Wolfgang testified against H.B. 5424, and then engaged in some repartee with the Committee that was described by one observer as "saucy."
We hope to have video footage of Peter's testimony (and the Q and A) soon. And we will have action items for what you can do to help us defeat this bill.
Suffice it to say, we agree with a line from a recent Chris Powell column:
"The real rationale for forcing medical providers to provide abortion is to stamp out contrary consciences and religious beliefs. Ironically, the people doing this stamping out tend to be the same ones who prattle about the benefits of 'diversity.'”
FIC told you last week about State Treasurer Erick Russell's bonkers attack on state legislators who supported Let Kids Be Kids, a bill simply requiring that parents be notified when gender transitions (among other things) are happening to their kids in school.
This past weekend in the Courant, those legislators responded.
On a related note, a fact brought to light by FIC Action's testimony against the Doctor Protection Bill made it into the subheading of a Courant headline:
As the Courant explains, "The reason why the lawmakers could not recall ever discussing gender-affirming care within the context of the 2022 reproductive rights shield law is because the language was never part of the bill." When the bill passed in 2022 it "made no explicit mention of any form of gender-affirming care." After it was passed, "the definition was amended to include 'all medical care relating to treatment of gender dysphoria' through a provision tucked into a 739-page budget implementer bill that was introduced for emergency certification."
That is how they sometimes roll at the state Capitol. In the dead of night, under the cover of darkness. This time, though, we helped bring it into the light.
Leslie Wolfgang brought some sauce of her own to a March 11th public hearing on a bill that would make it illegal to have librarians remove books depicting graphic sex acts from the children's section of the library.
You can read media coverage of Leslie's testimony here, here and here. Go to our FIC Action Alert to help us defeat this bill.
We haven't the space to tell you about Peter's visit to the Stamford Knights of Columbus communion breakfast this past Saturday, at which FIC was graciously recognized. Or Peter's visit to the State Capitol in Albany this past Tuesday, at which he addressed the New York Against Assisted Suicide coalition with the lessons we have learned on how to defeat it in liberal states. Or Peter's recent speech at St. Bridget Church in Cheshire. Or several other bills we are fighting.
You can support FIC's work here.
