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Ahead of President Biden signing an executive order to protect old-growth and mature forests, dozens of environmental groups sent a letter to the president affirming their support of the measure as a matter of leading by example as the U.S. looks to continue mitigating climate change. “Protecting mature forests and large trees on federal forestlands would set an important, highly visible example for other major forest-holding nations to follow as they address climate change threats. But it would also help stem the biodiversity crisis and secure for Americans the ecosystem benefits most valued from our public forests,” the letter noted.

The letter affirmed the president’s ability to make an executive order with an impact that could reverberate far beyond any incoming administration or subsequent attempts to dismantle such an act. Speaking with Center for Biological Diversity Public Lands Program Director Randi Spivak yesterday, Spivak pointed to the fact that many executive orders have stood the test of time because of what they’ve inspired. “If it directs the agencies to undertake a process and rule-making, rule-makings can be very, very durable,” Spivak said. “An administrative rule coming out of this administration, which is what I hope this executive order leads to, actually can be quite durable and stand the test of time.”

This order in particular addresses some of the concerns I had ahead of its release. The Biden administration has vowed to enact what the White House is calling “climate-smart stewardship” policies following a comprehensive inventory of old-growth and mature forests, the data on which will eventually be publicly available. This stewardship includes partnerships between the Interior Department, Agriculture Department, and “other federal agencies, states, Tribal Nations, and any interested private landowners to better coordinate conservation and wildfire risk reduction efforts”—which, of course, could address some of the bizarre complaints the anti-30×30 crowd may have about land use. Much of the information gleaned from the forest inventory will also be used for sustainable job opportunities and industries that further communities rather than forcing them to be reliant on more damaging industries like logging.

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

Climate Advisers CEO Nigel Purvis, who once worked in the State Department and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, hailed the executive order as a clear sign that President Biden was honoring campaign commitments. “Today’s pledge to mount a government-wide effort is encouraging. The President is saying all the right things; however, success will depend on delivering real action,” Purvis said in a statement. The order is an ambitious one and does extend to forests across the world. According to a White House fact sheet, the State Department will work with other agencies to not only combat global deforestation, but to center Indigenous and local communities in the fight to conserve and restore forests.

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Friday, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene testified in federal court challenging her eligibility for reelection in the 14th district based on comments she made before and after the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

The challenge was filed with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger by five voters represented by Free Speech for People, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 2010 offering legal assistance with a focus on election and constitutional issues.

The ruling reads that Greene “voluntarily aided and engaged in an insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power, disqualifying her from serving as a Member of Congress under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”

During his opening comments, Ron Fein, the attorney for the group of challengers, Free Speech for the People, called the hearing “solemn,” adding that the “most powerful witness against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s candidacy, in establishing she crossed a line, is Greene herself.”

RELATED STORY: Judge allows challenge by Georgia voters to block Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from the ballot

Although James Bopp Jr., Greene’s attorney, called the attack on Jan. 6 “despicable,” he also noted that no one involved had explicitly been charged with insurrection. He framed the hearing as a political move to silence Georgia voters.

“Our democracy is at stake. It should not be; it should be the voters, not government employees, public officials, judges, and lawyers who decide our elections,” Bopp said. “Voters have a right to vote for the candidate of their choice unless there was very compelling legal—not rhetorical—justification for that.”

Administrative Judge Charles Beaudrot oversaw Greene’s hearing.

Greene answered under oath Friday that she doesn’t “support violence of any kind” and asserted that her “words never mean anything for violence.”

Greene, 47, has denied being involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol. No evidence from Congress, the Jan. 6 congressional committee, or law enforcement has linked her to the attack.

On Jan. 5, 2021, Greene appeared on Newsmax for a Facebook Watch interview. During that show, the day before Congress met in a joint session to formally count the electoral college votes, Greene said, “This is our 1776 moment,” a reference to the American Revolution that has become synonymous with “freedom” for far-right extremists.

Greene claimed she had never heard anyone use “1776” in terms of violence.

At Friday’s hearing, there was a lot of eye-rolling by Greene and a lot of “I don’t recall,” and “I don’t remember,” but Greene did admit to believing that President Biden lost the election to former President Trump.

“We saw a tremendous amount of voter fraud,” Greene said.

When Andrew Celli, one of the voters’ attorneys, asked Greene whether it was her “personal opinion” and “wish that Congress not certify Joe Biden,” Greene answered, “No, that’s not accurate.”

When Celli questioned Greene about whether she’d ever called Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a “traitor,” Greene answered, “I don’t recall saying all of this.” Greene added that she didn’t know the Jan. 6 mob was targeting Pelosi.

“I’ve seen that on the news, but I don’t know for sure. I haven’t investigated all that,” Greene said.

Greene initially declined to respond to several of Celli’s questions regarding an article from CNN, accusing the outlet of taking her words out of context.

“Here’s the article we wrote last year. It’s just a quotes from ***her own*** videos we saved before she deleted them,” CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski tweeted.

When asked about comments she’s made comparing the American Revolution in 1776 with Jan. 6, Greene said she simply meant having “the courage to reject” the results. She denied she’d meant her comments as a code for violence on Jan. 6.

Greene also insisted that she’d “heard of the Proud Boys” but “didn’t know much about them or what they do.”

When shown a video of herself saying, “We can’t allow this, just let it go. To just transfer power peacefully, like Joe Biden wants, and allow him to become our president because he did not win this election,” Greene alleged that the videos were “chopped,” “cut,” and “spliced.”

At one point, Celli pointed out that one of Greene’s comments was eerily similar to a line from the film Independence Day—when actor Bill Pullman says, “We will not go quietly into the night!”—as code for 1776 and violent insurrection.

In describing the events of Jan. 6., Greene was pointed in saying that her initial thought after learning there was violence that day was that it must have been from “BLM [Black Lives Matter] or antifa.”

She’d said something similar early on in her testimony when asked about protests in Washington, D.C., that “the only violence” she “ever saw was Antifa and BLM riots.” And later referred to the insurrectionists as “patriots.”

“I only believe in peaceful demonstration,” Greene said. “I do not support violence.”

Following Friday’s hearing, the Georgia judge will outline the facts of the case and make a recommendation to Raffensperger, who will make the final ruling on whether Greene will appear on the ballot this November.

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The closer we get to the midterm elections, the more Republicans fall in love with hysterics. Sure, the Republican Party has long relied on stirring hate and outrage to rile up their fanbase, but these last few months feel like a special effort. After all, conservatives know they’ve failed to lead during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and they know Donald Trump’s presidency has been nothing but an international embarrassment. If conservatives like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis think they stand a chance at becoming president, for example, they’re likely quite motivated to attack easy targets as much as possible.

We’ve seen DeSantis (among others) sign heinous legislation into law, targeting rights from reproductive health to gender-affirming health care to (ahem) saying gay in the classroom. We’ve seen conservatives call for book bans if not book burnings. Critical race theory (CRT) has become an absolute rallying cry for the right, though I’m willing to bet plenty of folks on all sides of the political aisle couldn’t give the correct definition of the concept if they tried. This is perhaps how we’ve gotten to a point where examples from math textbooks are being banned from public school classrooms for references to CRT and checks notes lessons in empathy.

Where is this happening? If you guessed Florida, you guessed right.

RELATED: School districts in blue states aren’t safe from hysteria—just look at what’s happening in Maryland

We now have a few examples of examples from math textbooks that allegedly include references to CRT and social-emotional learning (SEL), as reported by CNN. Social-emotional learning, as some background, helps students learn how to solve problems and make decisions while managing their emotions and using empathy. Sadly, it’s easy to see why conservatives would want to stomp this sort of learning out—imagine if their minions developed a hint of empathy for the marginalized people they love to hate? Suddenly they’d have to work a lot harder to get votes. 

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

In a more advanced application, social-emotional learning is valuable for adults, too, when it comes to us understanding how and why we engage with others (as well as ourselves) in various situations at home, work, or with friends. For white people like myself, for example, this could mean an opportunity to identify and take accountability for microaggressions or racial bias. For able-bodied people like myself, it could mean challenging ableism when it comes to, say, deciding who gets a work opportunity or what logistics go into planning a community event. 

Again, these skills sound basic on the surface, but plenty of people lack them for a number of reasons. Kids learning this sort of stuff in school is absolutely not a bad thing. 

The Florida Department of Education shared four pages as examples, but The New York Times gained access to more than 20 texts as well. Surprising absolutely no one, the agency has not been specific in what counts as a violation of policy versus an outright ban, so it’s unclear what specifically caused which issue in the pages the Times acquired. 

One example shared by the Times includes a word problem where, in addition to the obvious math, students are able to learn how to support a friend who is scared about crossing a bridge in the jungle. Students learn that they can help the hypothetical friend by building up their confidence and supporting them, which is probably why conservatives are upset about it.

“We don’t want things like math to have, you know, some of these other concepts introduced,” DeSantis told reporters at a press conference on Monday, April 18. “It’s not been proven to be effective, and quite frankly, it takes our eye off the ball.”

Ah, yes, because nothing distracts from learning like … developing basic social skills, compassion, and real-world problem-solving. Guess kids should go back to copying multiplication tables on the blackboard and call it a day?

If it gets conservative votes, that’s probably more than fine with them, which is why we have to keep up the fight to do and be better for youth.

Who is ready for a Banned Book Club here at Daily Kos?

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Republican-controlled state after Republican-controlled state is copying the Texas vigilante abortion ban, and if (when) the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, most or all abortions will be banned in 26 states. Now Democrats have a state to look to as a model: Connecticut.

The Connecticut state House has passed a bill that should have Democratic lawmakers in states like California, Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and more opening their eyes, asking for a copy, and introducing it in their states as soon as possible. HB 5414 doesn’t just ensure that people will have access to abortion in Connecticut, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern reports. Once signed into law, it will protect them from the efforts of Republicans in other states to come after them for it.

RELATED STORY: Maryland lawmakers override Republican governor’s veto to expand abortion access

The Connecticut bill would bar state courts from enforcing out-of-state penalties against people who’ve obeyed Connecticut abortion laws. But more than that, it allows people who are sued in other states for abortions they aided or abetted in Connecticut to counter-sue. Someone tries to use Texas SB 8 or the Missouri plan to copy the Texas enforcement mechanism to prevent people from leaving the state for an abortion against a Connecticut medical provider? Boom, the Connecticut provider can sue in Connecticut for damages and attorneys’ fees.

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But it’s not just providers in Connecticut, Stern explains. “This provision applies with equal force to any individual who ‘abets’ an abortion, like a mother who takes her daughter to Connecticut to terminate a pregnancy. The new crop of vigilante laws would subject that mother to private lawsuits. Under HB 5414, she could countersue in Connecticut court. If she prevails, she can collect damages and attorneys’ fees—not only the fees spent defending herself in her home state, but also the fees spent bringing suit in Connecticut.”

And no Connecticut state agency could participate in the enforcement of out-of-state abortion bans—not with investigations or subpoenas or extraditions.

It’s brilliant, and every state in which Democrats have both the governor and the state legislature, or in which a Democratic state legislature can override a Republican governor’s veto, should make it law. Unfortunately, people who cannot afford to travel to other states will still be deeply harmed by vigilante bans. But the Missouri bill trying to block people from leaving the state for abortions was squarely aimed at neighboring Illinois. It only makes sense for Illinois to take up a version of HB 5414. Idaho passed a copy of SB 8, increasing the amount vigilantes could pursue from the $10,000 of the Texas law to $20,000. Idaho’s neighbors, Oregon and Washington, should be in a race to see which can pass a Connecticut-style law first. Few of Texas’s neighbors are likely to do anything but pass their own punitive abortion bans, but New Mexico has possibilities. Colorado, just through the Oklahoma panhandle from Texas, recently put the rights of Roe v. Wade into state law. Why not take the next step?

Creating abortion sanctuary states won’t reach everyone—far from it, in an economy in which paying just the cost of an abortion and getting a single day off work is a hardship for many. But Democrats need to have strategies to combat Republican efforts to extend their bans into states where abortion is legal. Connecticut’s HB 5414 is an important tool in that fight.

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Missouri Republican bill would block the option of leaving the state for an abortion

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Just when you think Republicans can’t get any crueler, they manage to outdo themselves. Our latest example comes out of Michigan, where state Sen. Tom Barrett, who is in the running for a seat serving the 7th Congressional District, reportedly sent disturbing, inaccurate texts suggesting people’s children’s “gender reassignment surgery” has been “booked,” as reported by the Michigan Advance. 

 “CONFIRMED,” the texts read, according to a screenshot that has since gone viral on Twitter. “Your child’s gender reassignment surgery has been booked.” The text goes on to say, “If you have any issues with this operation, please view the objectives of Biden’s National Transgender Strategy here.” There’s also a link to a Republican fundraising site because of course there is. That page reads: “STOP BIDEN FROM DOING THIS TO OUR KIDS!”

Newsflash: Biden isn’t “booking” anyone for surgeries—not even safe, age-appropriate, gender-affirming ones. 

RELATED: Florida releases examples of banned math textbooks that include lessons in … empathy?

“President Biden is forcing 5-year-olds to learn about gender reassignment surgeries, gender identities, and other radical ideas,” the fundraising page reads in part. “American needs to step up TODAY and stop this sick and twisted ideology from poisoning our children. If we fail, our children are doomed.”

“Democrats are HELLBENT on destroying our faith,” further texts reportedly read. “Removing God from the center of our nation, and pushing transgender ideology on young children.”

Vivian Topping, director of advocacy and civic engagement at the Equality Federation, and Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights

Obviously, there’s a lot wrong here. First of all, safe, gender-affirming health care is life-saving health care. We know this. We also know children are not waltzing into operating rooms and demanding surgeries; gender-affirming health care can be as simple and non-intrusive as having a trusted medical professional support a young person’s pronoun use or gender presentation, for example. In many states, youth under 16 can’t access certain care, like hormonal therapies, as it is. And while conservatives love to stir misinformation about some treatments, like puberty blockers, those decisions are personal medical calls that should be made between the person and their physician, not any of us. 

Now, about the texts. I have sincere concern that messages like these are going to result in a youth being harmed, if not killed. If someone is actually trans, they could inadvertently be outed and face serious abuse, violence, or become homeless. They could be sent to conversion therapy, an archaic, heinous medical practice that has not yet been banned in the entire nation. This sort of messaging can also harm cisgender youth, too, especially if they are remotely non-gender-conforming in the way they present or dress themselves or the sort of activities they enjoy. 

The language and framing also feed into the Republican talking point about grooming and groomers—imagine how many parents will get a text like that and immediately interrogate the young people in their home to figure out if a neighbor, teacher, or coach “booked” this surgery or talked their adolescent into it? Again, that’s not how any of this works. But if you’re intentionally fanning the fire, you’re going to get some explosions.

And that could cost vulnerable youth their lives. 

As of now, Barrett is serving his second term in the Michigan State Senate. Previously, he served two terms in the state’s House of Representatives. He’s now campaigning for the Republican nomination to represent Michigan’s 7th in the House. That primary takes place on Aug. 2 and the general election is held on Nov. 8, where the winner of the Republican primary will be up against Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin. 

You can check out footage from Barrett where he again waxes hysteria about small businesses closing because Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tried her best to save lives during the pandemic.

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It’s been a rough week for Sen. Mike Lee of Utah thanks to a dogged Utah press corps that isn’t nearly as quick as the D.C. press gang to ignore his efforts to help the former squatter in the Oval Office have a coup. While not a single one of the network Sunday shows even mentioned the existence of Lee’s barrage of text messages plotting with Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the press back home cares.

Like Bryan Schott of the Salt Lake Tribune, who tried valiantly to get Lee to answer his questions about Lee’s texts on the plot. Not only would Lee not answer him, his staff blocked Schott from following Lee to try to get him to talk.

Schott’s persistence, and some bad local press, ended up sending Lee to a rival paper, the Deseret News, after it published a story saying that Lee had some explaining to do about statements he made last year in a lengthy interview about the 2020 election. In Lee’s response, he tried to minimize his plotting against America. He said it was all just chatting with Meadows, an old friend.

“He knows that when I said things like ‘Tell me what we ought to be saying,’ what I was just trying to figure out was ‘What is your message?’ He knows me well enough to know that that doesn’t mean I will do your bidding, whatever it is,” Lee told Deseret News in a phone interview later that same day. “Conversations I had with him at the time on the phone and in person, he knew that. He knew I was not there to do his bidding,” Lee said of his conversations with Meadows.

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

He’s playing the victim, of course, saying the texts are being taken out of context for “political motives” and were “leaked” to maximize damage in his primary campaign. It would be interesting to have Lee explain how this statement about his trying to get state legislators to overturn the election could be explained in any other context: “I’ve been spending 14 hours a day for the last week trying to unravel this for him. … I’ve been calling state legislators for hours today, and am going to spend hours doing the same tomorrow.” Or this one: “We need something from state legislatures to make this legitimate and to have any hope of winning. Even if they can’t convene, it might be enough if a majority of them are willing to sign a statement indicating how they would vote.”

Lee also refused in that interview to say whether Biden was elected in a free and fair election. “President Biden is the president of the United States,” Lee answered.  “We know that he is the president of the United States because the Electoral College met on Dec. 14 and then cast electoral votes. Those electoral votes signaled the victory for President Biden.” He refused to refute the Big Lie in this interview. Pressed about whether he thought there was fraud in the 2020 election, Lee just said, “I’ve answered your question.”

He also kind of maybe lied again. “From the outset of this, I spent an enormous amount of time doing my job with only one objective in mind. Particularly once the electoral votes were cast, my objective was to figure out what, if any role, Congress had,” Lee said. Because what he was telling Meadows was that he was spending an enormous amount of time—14 hours a day—trying to convince Republican state legislators to cheat. Which he also denies. “At no point in any of those was I engaging in advocacy. I wasn’t in any way encouraging them to do that. I just asked them a yes or no question,” he said. He didn’t explain why it took 14 hours a day to get a handful of legislators in the swing states that voted for Biden where he told Meadows he was making the calls to say yes or no.

As Tribune reporter Schott tweeted in a must-read thread picking apart Lee’s assertions, “The explanations he offers are wholly inadequate, and raise so many new questions.”

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Schott isn’t the only one looking for answers from Lee. So are Jan. 6 survivors, who met with Lee and other Republican senators in May 2021 to ask them to back legislation forming an independent commission to investigate Jan. 6. That clearly didn’t work, and Lee told the group he felt it would be too “partisan.” The survivors—former D.C. Police Officer Mike Fanone; Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn; Sandra Garza, the girlfriend of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died on Jan. 7; and Gladys Sicknick, Brian’s mother—were frustrated with Lee then. Now, they tell Rolling Stone, they’re furious.

“I never had a particularly high opinion of politicians,” Fanone says. “I’m not shocked that I sat in a room across from somebody while I showed them body worn camera footage of myself almost being beaten to death by Trump supporters on January 6 and then had them lie to my face.” He added, “Mike Lee is not a politician. He’s a criminal suspect.” Garza blasted Lee and other Republicans for trying “to cover their tracks.”

“They knew that it was going to open up a lot of stuff that would look bad for them because they were doing stuff behind the scenes,” Garza says. She said Lee’s excuses to them in that meeting last year now seem, in retrospect after the release of these texts, a “pathetic” attempt to cover up his complicity. “He defaulted to that … ‘Oh, let’s just focus on the failures of the [Capitol Police] leadership or the failures of the other law-enforcement agencies so we can take the focus off me, my colleagues, and Trump,’” Garza says. “That’s all that was.” She’s particularly angry about Lee’s “14 hours a day” text. “I’m curious if he was putting any of that effort in trying to comfort any of the families of the officers who committed suicide shortly after the 6th, and I know he wasn’t,” Garza says of Lee.

Gladys Sicknick wants Lee in front of the House Jan. 6 committee, saying it would be a “dereliction” of duty if he doesn’t testify. “Senator Lee is in a position to assist the process of determining what happened at the Capitol. I think that he, along with other officials, are duty-bound to offer testimony to the January 6th Commission as it seeks to establish whether what occurred was spontaneous, or a carefully planned insurrection,” Sicknick wrote. “It’s my hope that Mr. Lee will willingly and truthfully participate in the Congressional inquiry, according to his Oath to the Constitution.”

Fanone agrees, though he’s a little more blunt about it. “What we’re dealing with right now is unprecedented in American history,” Fanone says. “I think that we need to set aside all of the pomp and circumstance and actually just enforce the fucking law.”

This is an important and, frankly, juicy story that a D.C. press corps worth whatever it is they’re getting paid should be all over. Because every time Lee opens his mouth, he’s telling another lie. Because he swore an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” an oath that he has broken.

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In a decision in favor of abortion advocates across the state, a federal judge temporarily blocked Kentucky officials from enforcing a new abortion law on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings in Louisville issued a temporary restraining order at Planned Parenthood’s request a week after the law went into effect. The measure passed on April 13 made Kentucky the first U.S. state without legal abortion access since 1973.

According to Jennings, because the law went into effect immediately, there was not enough time for regulations governing abortion to be written for clinics to comply with, as the law required. At least two of the state’s remaining clinics said they couldn’t meet the law’s requirements and filed lawsuits challenging the law.

“Because plaintiff cannot comply with HB 3 and thus cannot legally perform abortion services, its patients face a substantial obstacle to exercising their rights to a pre-viability abortion,” she wrote.

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

At this time Jennings did not consider the constitutionality of the law’s requirements and instead focused on how clinics would comply with the requirements since the state did not set up clear guidelines. According to the Associated Press, Jennings said her order does not prevent the state from crafting regulations.

The news comes a week after Kentucky legislators suspended legal abortion access by forcing providers to stop offering abortions until they can meet certain requirements through a law that was to be effective right away. Under the law, state clinics were not only banned from performing abortions after 15 weeks but also required to cremate fetal remains of abortions that were permissible, alongside birth-death or stillbirth certificates.

HB 3 required Kentucky’s state-operated health agency, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, to create new forms for clinics, including a document for providers to report abortions performed in Kentucky and a document to obtain informed consent. While the law also required drugs only to be given by “qualified physicians,” it did not outline how physicians were to register.

“This is a win, but it is only the first step,” said Rebecca Gibron, the CEO for Planned Parenthood in Kentucky. The clinic is immediately resuming abortion services. “We’re prepared to fight for our patients’ right to basic health in court and to continue doing everything in our power in ensure abortion access is permanently secured in Kentucky.”

HB 3 was initially vetoed by Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, the Republican-majority House and Senate overrode his veto to enable the bill. Beshear’s main concern was the lack of an exception for rape or incest. He also noted that the bill was “likely unconstitutional” because of the requirements it imposed on providers, Reuters reported.

States across the country are passing their own versions of heartbeat bills or abortion bans that not only limit when abortions are possible but imprison doctors who perform them. Most of these bills are modeled after the Mississippi law that is making its way to the Supreme Court in an attempt to reverse Roe v. Wade. The Mississippi Supreme Court decision could reverse the landmark Roe case and impact abortion rights nationally.

“Abortion remains legal and is once again available in Kentucky,” said Heather Gatnarek, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of EMW Women’s surgical center. “We will always fight to keep it that way here and across the country.”