June 26 is a significant date for the Thomas More Society during its 20th anniversary of defending faith and freedom. Throughout 2018, the national nonprofit law firm has celebrated its founding, and how the case over which it began paved the way for current and future legal challenges. The landmark case, NOW v. Scheidler, through which the Thomas More Society was birthed, continues shaping the path of today’s pro-life movement. There are many milestones over these years, yet June 26 stands out because in 2014, it was the day that the abortion lobby paid.

Thomas More Society Founder, President, and Chief Counsel, Tom Brejcha, was an attorney at a private law firm in 1996 when the three-decade legal battle of NOW v. Scheidler began. The abortion industry succeeded in pressing charges against peaceful pro-life advocates, primarily Joe Scheidler, the “Godfather” of the pro-life movement, by using a law designed to combat organized crime.

Late in 1997, just months before NOW v. Scheidler was set to go to trial, Brejcha’s law firm gave him an ultimatum: quit the case or quit the firm. Brejcha stuck with Scheidler and resigned. Shortly after the trial began early in 1998, the Thomas More Society was born.

Brejcha and the Scheidler family started the Thomas More Society to defend the pro-life movement against persecution that continues today. In an unprecedented journey that brought the case to the Supreme Court three times, the Thomas More Society dealt a decisive blow to the abortion lobby on behalf of the dedicated pro-life movement.

The culmination of the victory came on June 26, 2014, when Fay Clayton, attorney for the National Organization for Women, issued a check in the amount of $63,391.45 “for costs due to defendants,” as ordered by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, thus concluding the almost three-decade saga of NOW v. Scheidler.

The court-ordered amount may not seem significant, but according to Brejcha, the tens of thousands of babies’ lives that have been saved as a result of this legal decision are priceless. Data from Thomas More Society clients 40 Days for Life, Pro-Life Action League, and Students for Life of America, among others, confirm Brejcha’s estimate of lives saved because of the NOW v. Scheidler victory.

NOW v. Scheidler is over, but the rights of those who defend the sanctity of human life are continually challenged. Today, the Thomas More Society has followed the battle from sidewalks outside abortion clinics to protecting religious rights in the public arena. Some current cases include protecting students’ privacy in public school bathrooms and ensuring that taxpayers aren’t funding research with tissue from aborted babies in fertility labs. Faithful adherence to the mission of restoring respect in law for life, family, and religious liberty remains the motivator behind each and every legal action.

As for the future of the Thomas More Society, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Andy Bath, shared:

“These legal scenarios are growing more intense. Our nation is extremely polarized, and the ‘live and let live’ approach no longer seems to be accepted. The struggle is continually about where one’s individual rights end and another’s begin. The lines have become incredibly blurred within our culture. Our mission is to preserve those constitutionally guaranteed lines and the inalienable right to life that extremists would like to erode.”

Read more about the Thomas More Society’s landmark victory in NOW v. Scheidler here.