Recently, one small stone was lodged against the Abortion Giant in Nebraska by way of Legislative Resolution 238, a resolution put forth by Senator Rick Holdcroft. LR238 proposes “an interim study to determine the quality of patient services at abortion clinics in Nebraska and the nature and quality of state oversight of those clinics.”
After years of personally filing formal complaints about illegal happenings at the Carhart abortion facility in Bellevue, the Thomas More Society joined in and filed a comprehensive 21-page complaint with detailed evidence regarding statutes that have been repeatedly violated by the facility.
Any whistleblower knows that the first response to a claim of wrongdoing is almost always complete denial by the person or institution to which you report. In response to the evidence-laden 21-page complaint, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services sent a one paragraph email to the Thomas More Society and didn’t even manage to get the attorney’s name spelled correctly.
The Thomas More Society persisted, elevating the complaint to a person of significant authority in DHHS and copying the Nebraska Attorney General and Senator Rick Holdcroft. I asked Senator Holdcroft if there was a way to hold a legislative hearing about the continual violations of the law at the Carhart facility. LR 238, the small stone, was introduced on May 15.
Only a few hearings were held in the interim session, but the small stone hit its mark at a special hearing on October 16.
Each person who testified to the wrongdoings at the Carhart facility, as well as Planned Parenthood, was met with questions meant to shift the blame or lead the discussion off track.
Matt Heffron of the Thomas More Society testimony included three major points:
- The Carhart clinic is rampantly violating Nebraska laws.
- DHHS refuses to do its job enforcing Nebraska laws on abortion.
- Under current Nebraska law and practice, whether to enforce is primarily left up to DHHS; changes need to be made to assure HHS employees are held accountable.
One senator seemed to try and shift blame, asking Heffron why he didn’t go directly to the “anti-abortion” Governor, arguing that if these violations were “founded,” he’d think the Governor would “be all over this.”
By the time I testified, I had enough of the one senator who did most of the whistleblower blaming and topic diversions.
I read my statement and was astounded as the same senator tried to tell me the abortionist’s malpractice suit was settled and protected by HIPPA, and the physician would have had to declare it on her application. I told him to read the grievous injuries to the woman and offered to give him a copy of the application where the abortionist checked the box that said “no disciplinary action” taken against her license.
I added, “There needs to be oversight. If we are going to have doctors practicing, it doesn’t matter if it’s abortion or obstetrics, let’s follow the rules, let’s be licensed, let’s consider patient safety paramount to what is going on.”
Feeling this was a “fight the giant” moment (1 Sam. 17:32), I also told the senator that I was certainly willing to go to the Governor and sit outside his office to make him aware of all these violations. However, another department is already clearly responsible for this kind of oversight, so I spelled it out for him as clear as I could:
“I’m asking for your help, you’re the Health and Human services oversight committee. You’re the people, not the governor, to take this on. We can go to the governor, and I gladly sit outside his office and talk with him, wait to talk to him, but you are the governing [body] of the Health and Human services committee. You’re the appropriate board. We are using the appropriate channels. We’re telling you there’s a big problem in Bellevue.”
Just a short time later, as the hearing was ending, I held my breath as another senator who typically leans pro-abortion suddenly offered, “My bottom sense is it’s always important as an oversight group to do the right thing. Being an old farm boy and on the farm if you saw one rat you had fifty. So my concern is with the performance, then, of HHS, if they are not following up with corrective action plans then they, maybe, have other problems, 50 other ones. It’s not a good message.”
I couldn’t believe it! Only God could make that pro-abortion Senator the best closer for my argument!
Following this hearing, LR 238 will be moved forward in the following ways:
- The Chair of the HHS Committee will contact DHHS to get some answers since no one from DHHS was at the hearing, despite being invited many times (very telling in and of itself).
- The matter will be moved up to the newly formed Legislative Oversight Committee.
Here in Nebraska, we continue to pray that this small stone, LR238, along with all the testimony offered, will continue to greatly advance the fight against the ABORTION GIANT and effectively address DHHS’s lack of enforcement of Nebraska laws!
This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America.
