News From The Week Of September 20 – September 24, 2021

Friend:

This week saw the first lawsuits under the Texas abortion ban by citizen bounty hunters eager to win $10,000 for catching a Texas doctor, nurse, driver or friend helping a pregnant person obtain an abortion. This is just the beginning of the outsourced enforcement of this draconian law, which empowers anyone in any state to enforce this ban and hinder pregnant people from exercising their rights.

Fortunately, advocates were ready with a nationwide legislative remedy. The Women's Health Protection Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday, creates a long-overdue statutory right to receive abortion care, free of medically unnecessary restrictions, as well as a right for health professionals to provide this care.

AU is among 100 members of the #ActForAbortionAccess campaign working to pass the bill. We track and highlight the religious aspects of abortion restrictions, many of which are grounded in theology. It’s our job to call out the extremists who continually devise new obstacles in order to shame women and undermine our rights.

We are fighting an ugly crusade that reaches back to the 1970s and 80s, when the “Moral Majority” and its ilk switched gears from defending racist policies at religious universities to controlling women’s lives. For three generations and counting, the Religious Right and their cynical political allies have made abortion a wedge issue.

Their ultimate goal could well be reached in the Supreme Court term that begins in just over a week. On its docket is Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, involving a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. It was engineered to give the Court its long-sought vehicle to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate abortion as a constitutional right.

AU filed a friend-of-the-court brief ([link removed]), anchored in church-state separation and freedom of conscience, earlier this week, arguing that laws touching on personal autonomy must be grounded in secular rationales, not theology. You’ll hear much more about this case in weeks to come. A bad ruling will encourage extremists to go even further to impose a narrow version of Christian morality on our laws and engender even deeper societal divides and strife.

Our laws simply cannot favor certain religious beliefs over others, which is why AU has been supporting reproductive freedom for nearly 75 years.

That brings me to last week’s victory in a Tennessee school district where coaches led players in prayer, among other religious freedom violations ([link removed]). As the prayer was faculty-led, it clearly violated the Constitution, and we told the school district that in no uncertain terms. We saw our impact at the team’s very next game when players circled up on their own to pray. That led one local activist to crow, “Satan’s power was defeated tonight,” a sentiment echoed by many of the conservative media outlets covering the incident. I don’t know about Satan, but religious extremism was certainly defeated, as player-led prayers are fully in keeping with the law.

It promises to be a busy and demanding fall. Stay strong and engaged, and we’ll get through it together.

With hope and gratitude,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO

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Congress Votes To Protect Abortion Access:
In an equitable and just society, all people, particularly marginalized people, deserve to determine the direction of their lives. Let’s trust people to make decisions that are best for their lives, their families, and their bodies.
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AU Reminds Tenn. County Public School That Coaches Can’t Lead Prayer – And The Crowd Goes Wild:
Students have the right to pray in public schools in a non-disruptive manner.
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Americans United Is No Stranger To The Fight To Protect Reproductive Freedom. We’ve Been At It For Decades:
In the 1950s and ’60s, Americans United worked to end state laws that banned birth control or gagged doctors from discussing it with patients. These laws were in place in some states because powerful religious groups opposed the use of artificial forms of birth control.
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White Christian Nationalists Are Increasingly Detached From Reality. That’s A Threat To Democracy:
Since the rise of the modern Religious Right in the late 1970s, Christian nationalists have tarred their opponents as ethically flexible people who have no real system of morals because they lack a proper 'biblical worldview.'
READ MORE » [link removed]

South Dakota Governor Claims She’ll Allow Students To ‘Pray In Schools Again’:
In a free country with a secular constitution, we all get to make our own decisions about what role, if any, religion will play in our lives. That’s not good enough for Noem and those who think like her.
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