Alabama justice who ruled embryos are people says American law should be rooted in the Bible

Parker’s statements — in his remarks to Enlow and in his written opinion — are the latest examples of Republican politicians and elected officials embracing the Christian nationalist view that America’s laws should be rooted in a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. Read more at NBC News  

Alabama Supreme Court rules that embryos are children – repercussions for IVF – news round-up

How Alabama’s ruling that frozen embryos are ‘children’ could impact IVF Ziegler: I think there’s been a broader strategy — the sort of next Roe v. Wade, if you will — for the anti-abortion movement. It is a recognition that a fetus or embryo is a person for all purposes, particularly for the purposes of … Read more

Alabama Supreme Court rules embryos are children – news round-up

Alabama Supreme Court rules that frozen embryos outside the womb are children The lawsuit involved embryos stored at a fertility clinic in Mobile. According to the opinion, in 2020 a patient “managed to wander” into the fertility clinic and remove several frozen embryos from the nursery, according to the lawsuit. The patient dropped the frozen … Read more

Tennessee advances bill to ban people from helping minors obtain abortion

The bill would allow individuals to sue for “wrongful death” after an abortion – language that suggests that a fetus is legally considered a person. Establishing the legal personhood of fetuses is a longtime goal of the anti-abortion movement and could have sweeping implications for vast swathes of US law, as it could leave pregnant … Read more

Florida Chief Justice Pushes Fetal Personhood At Argument For Abortion Amendment

Muñiz was quoting from one of the earliest passages in Florida’s constitution that says that all natural persons “are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, to pursue happiness, to be rewarded for industry, and to acquire, possess and protect property.” If … Read more

Even at March for Life, abortion opponents don’t talk about a national ban

Johnson highlighted two bills House Republicans passed this week. One would block a proposed federal rule meant to keep states from using money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) — one of the programs most often associated with the term welfare — to support anti-abortion centers. Another bill would require that colleges … Read more

Texas questions rights of fetus in prison guard lawsuit despite arguing opposite on abortion

In defending themselves against a lawsuit, Texas officials have argued that an “unborn child” may not have rights under the US constitution, putting them in tension with arguments made by the state’s attorney’s general’s office as well as Republican lawmakers to support restrictions to abortion. Read more at The Guardian  

‘They railroad them’: the states using ‘fetal personhood’ laws to criminalize mothers

She is one of hundreds of women prosecuted on similar charges in Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Law enforcement and prosecutors in those states have expanded their use of child abuse and neglect laws in recent years to police the conduct of pregnant women under the concept of “fetal personhood”, a tenet promoted by … Read more