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AUL brief asks U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether ‘bubble zones’ violate the First Amendment
(AUL) Bubble zone laws, such as Chicago’s ordinance, not only impinge upon the free speech rights of sidewalk counselors (and others) to approach and converse with people on public ways, but they also deprive women of the opportunity to hear and act upon information offered by sidewalk counselors and sidewalk counseling organizations—information welcomed by many women,” said Rachel Morrison, AUL Litigation Counsel. “Without intervention by the Supreme Court, sidewalk counselors and sidewalk counseling organizations will continue to be targeted for their pro-life speech and have their free speech rights suppressed without recourse.
Of Vincent Lambert and Ethical Rubicons
(First Things) I hope the U.N. Committee continues its investigation. Lambert (and Schiavo) were not terminally ill. They only died because those with the power to decide deemed their lives not worth living. Is it not discrimination based on disability to decide that death is in a patient’s best interests because a patient is cognitively incapacitated? Is it discrimination based on disability to remove food and water from people because they are cognitively incapacitated, when we would not (yet) starve incompetent patients who willingly eat?
Washington Post/ABC News Poll Is Being Overhyped by Abortion-Rights Supporters
(National Review) Interestingly, this new poll has received far more media coverage than last week’s Gallup poll, which showed a pro-life plurality for the first time since 2013. Of course, this is unsurprising. Many media outlets seem invested in pushing the narrative that the protective pro-life laws enacted by Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, and other states this year are in fact hurting the pro-life movement in the eyes of Americans. Those same outlets appear to have have little interest in the counter-narrative, that legislation in blue states to make abortion laws more permissive — and growing Democratic opposition to the Hyde amendment — is reducing support for legal abortion.
Judge Upholds Oklahoma Law Banning Dismemberment Abortions That Tear Off Babies’ Limbs
(LifeNews) In a victory for the rights of unborn babies, an Oklahoma judge upheld a state law Friday that bans brutal dismemberment abortions that tear nearly fully-formed unborn babies limb from limb. Tulsa World reports Oklahoma County District Judge Cindy Truong upheld the 2015 pro-life law in a case brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Tulsa Women’s Clinic, an abortion facility. The Oklahoma Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act bans dismemberment abortions, also known as D&E abortions, that tear unborn babies limb from limb while their hearts are still beating. The method is a common second-trimester abortion procedure. Abortion practitioners who violate the law would face up to two years in prison as well as a $10,000 fine.
The South Is a Pro-Life Stronghold
(National Review) I was born in Alabama, the state that banned abortion. I lived for a time in Louisiana, a state that passed a heartbeat bill. I grew up in Kentucky, home of another heartbeat bill, and I now live in Tennessee, a state that recently passed a pro-life constitutional amendment. I’m a son of the South, and it’s deeply moving to me that, in this time and in this generation, a region and a culture responsible for so much hurt (and one that still struggles with the enduring impact of slavery and Jim Crow) is now standing up for the most vulnerable Americans. Not long ago, I had a lengthy conversation with Georgia representative Ed Setzler, one of the sponsors of his state’s heartbeat bill, and he told me the explicit goal of the bill was to expand American liberty, to use the power of state law specifically to humanize the people whom the Supreme Court had dehumanized. This was the New South in action, repenting of America’s second sin. Yet as he acted to humanize, his northern colleagues dehumanized. They denied the personhood even of a child who was fully capable of living outside the womb. The lesson here is clear. History has a legacy. Men and women can struggle for centuries with the consequences of grievous wrongs. But history is not always destiny. New generations can forge different paths. And in the South, the present generation is choosing to embrace the promise of the Founding.
Theodore Roosevelt Considered Abortion ‘Pre-Natal Infanticide’
(National Review) "Throughout his life, President Roosevelt had a particular hatred for the crime of abortion, without distinction as to the stage of gestation. He fiercely declaimed against what he termed “pre-natal infanticide” and refused pardon to criminals guilty of being an accessory to abortion, as he explained in his own autobiography".
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