The position of the North Carolina GOP under Whatley on embryos mirrors a recent decision by the Alabama Supreme Court. On February 16, Alabama’s highest court ruled that frozen embryos are “children” — entitled to the same legal protections as an infant or a third grader. This was based on a religious conviction of when … Read more
Tom Parker, a Republican who joined the court in 2005, wrote a concurring opinion that quoted at length from sources such as the Book of Genesis, the Ten Commandments and Christian thinkers of centuries ago, such as Thomas Aquinas. But comments he has made in other media have raised questions about his seeming espousal of … Read more
“He framed it entirely assuming that the state of Alabama is a theocracy, and that that is a legitimate way of evaluating laws and policies,” said Julie Ingersoll, a University of North Florida professor who studies religion and culture. “It looks like he decided to just dismiss the history of first amendment religious freedom jurisprudence … Read more
‘A Quandary’: Republicans Hesitant To Back Federal Protections For IVF On the one hand, Republicans maintain that they support the continued use of IVF, calling it both pro-family and pro-life. But on the other hand, many in the GOP agree with the central premise of the ruling that found that frozen embryos are children with … Read more
“In his own words Donald Trump confirmed what we already knew: He wants a national abortion ban. When Donald Trump repealed Roe, he allowed states to ban abortion, attack birth control, and restrict fertility treatments women depend on,” campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said. Read more at The Hill
Donald Trump floated possible support for a 15-week limit on abortion in a Fox News interview on Thursday night, though the former president’s campaign wouldn’t elaborate on his plans. Read more at Politico
“We cannot ballot initiative our way out of this fundamental crisis of rights,” said Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer for the American Civil Liberties Union, one of many groups bracing for Trump and a Republican Congress to attempt to override state abortion protections. “I have no doubt that they would try to impose … Read more
Johnson’s name appears smack-dab in the middle of a list of 125 House Republicans co-sponsoring the Life at Conception Act, which was introduced in January 2023 as an anti-abortion bill after failing to pass earlier sessions of Congress. The bill’s language does not include any exceptions for IVF. Read more at HuffPost
The question people should be asking is whether Trump will give free rein to the anti-abortion advisers in his orbit, Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the UC Davis School of Law, told me. The big thing those advisers are pushing for is the reinterpretation and enforcement of the Comstock Act. As I wrote in … Read more
The plans are already beginning to take shape. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Republicans have floated enforcing the Comstock Act, a zombie law from the 19th century, to criminalize the inter-state shipping of abortion medication. The outdated law also includes broad prohibitions on the mailing of materials considered “obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy, or … Read more
