New Audio Reveals IRS Treatment of Pro-Life Group: 'You Can’t Force Your Religion on Somebody Else\

Alliance Defending Freedom, a pro-life legal group, released audio on Monday of a conversation between Ania Joseph, president of Pro-Life Revolution, and Sherry Wan, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent.

The Texas-based pro-life group offers counseling to mothers who are considering abortion. The group also seeks to educate scared soon-to-be mothers on the possible long-term physical and psychological ramifications of abortion.

Wan lectured Joseph on the group’s mission and told the pro-life leader that she needs to “know [her] boundaries.”

“You cannot force your religion or force your beliefs on somebody else,” Wan told Joseph in a nearly 10-minute phone conversation.

“I just have a question, Sherry,” Joseph interjected. “Is handing a brochure to somebody forcing somebody to do something they don’t want to do?”

Wan explained her position.

“You convince them. But when you take a lot of action, [unintelligible] other people. For example, when you, you know, go to, you know, the abortion clinic, and you found  them  [unintelligible], we don’t want, you know, to come against them,” the agent said.

“You can’t take all kinds  of confrontation activities and  also put something on a website and ask people to take action against the abortion clinic. That’s not, that’s not really educational.”

Wan added:

You have the right to believe. You have the right to do, your religion told you what’s right. You have a right to, you  know, outreach to other people.

But meanwhile, you have to know your boundaries. You have to  know your limits. You have to respect other people’s beliefs. You have somebody else come to  your door and know you don’t like them. When they come to you, how do you feel?

Joseph decided from there that the wiser move would be to seek legal counsel. So she did, enlisting the aid of ADF which now provides the group with legal advice.

“The IRS is a tax collector; it shouldn’t be allowed to be the speech and belief police,” said Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “The current scandal isn’t new but has merely exposed the abuse of power that characterizes this agency and threatens our fundamental freedoms.”

“The power to tax is the power to destroy,” added Stanley. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We cannot allow the IRS to ruthlessly dictate against legitimate non-profits simply because it does not approve of the organization’s mission. It must be held accountable.”

“The IRS has approved applications for tax exemption for pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood and Life and Liberty for Women,” ADF said.

Here’s the phone call between Joseph and Wan [Full audio here and full transcript here]:

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(H/T: Life News). Featured image screen grab.