A legal scholar sizes up the religious argument against abortion bans

ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL
JULY 9, 2023

(JTA) — The abortion debate is often portrayed as a clash between religious beliefs on the pro-life side and secular or humanist convictions on the pro-choice side. Indeed, lawmakers and activists have often invoked God in enacting state bans on abortion since the Supreme Court, in last year’s Dobbs decision, struck down a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Some clergy and faith groups, however, including a number of Jews, are pushing back. In efforts to overturn these restrictions, they have been pressing a legal strategy claiming that abortion bans violate their religious liberty. In Kentucky, a case brought by three Jewish women argues that the state’s near-total abortion ban violates their religious beliefs about when life begins and protecting a mother’s life. In Indiana, a suit brought by Hoosier Jews for Choice and four women who represent a variety of faiths demands exemptions from the state’s abortion ban for people whose religions support abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.jta.org/2023/07/09/ideas/a-legal-scholar-sizes-up-the-religious-argument-against-abortion-bans

‘Theocratic’ US abortion bans will violate religious liberty, faith leaders say

The anti-abortion side has monopolized arguments based on religion. But some say their faith supports the right to choose

Melody Schreiber
Thu 2 Jun 2022

Misha Sanders was starting over. She had just left an abusive relationship, and she was in her first semester of seminary, all while caring for her child, a teenager with a pressing health problem.

That’s when she found out she was pregnant. Sanders took misoprostol and mifepristone, the two drugs known collectively as the abortion pill, to end the pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/abortion-bans-violate-religious-liberty

USA – The Supreme Court is leading a Christian conservative revolution

Almost as soon as Justice Barrett was confirmed, the Court handed down a revolutionary “religious liberty” decision. It hasn’t slowed down since.

By Ian Millhiser
Jan 30, 2022

Justice Amy Coney Barrett had been a member of the Supreme Court for less than a month when she cast the key vote in one of the most consequential religion cases of the past century.

Months earlier, when the seat she would fill was still held by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court had handed down a series of 5-4 decisions establishing that churches and other houses of worship must comply with state occupancy limits and other rules imposed upon them to slow the spread of Covid-19.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/22889417/supreme-court-religious-liberty-christian-right-revolution-amy-coney-barrett

Justice Alito takes aim at abortion rights, gay marriage and Covid rules

Supreme court justice warns freedom of speech becoming ‘second-tier constitutional right’ in partisan address to Federalist Society

Tom McCarthy
Fri 13 Nov 2020

The inability of people to say, without fear of being branded as bigots, that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman is threatening to make freedom of speech “a second-tier constitutional right”, supreme court justice Samuel Alito said at a virtual conference on Thursday.

In a bleak address, Alito took aim at abortion rights, same-sex marriage, gun control and other conservative bugbears.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/nov/13/justice-samuel-alito-supreme-court-liberty

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Legacy Would Be Destroyed by Amy Coney Barrett

And that’s exactly why President Trump would nominate her

Christine Grimaldi
Sept 19, 2020

For nearly two years, I’ve made doomsday predictions about federal judge Amy Coney Barrett assuming Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Well, doomsday is here. Barrett’s name began circulating as a top contender for the lifetime job within hours of Ginsburg’s death on Friday. By Saturday afternoon, Trump said that his nominee would “most likely” be a woman.

Barrett is one of the 216 and counting Trump-appointed federal judges the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed to lifetime seats, many of which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held open through the Obama years. She fit into the new generation of overwhelmingly white, mostly male, extremely conservative, and comparatively young lifetime federal judges transforming the courts for the next generation.

Continued: https://gen.medium.com/the-nomination-of-amy-coney-barrett-would-destroy-the-legacy-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg-f0829a0ec76b

19.09.2020

Supreme Court says employers may opt out of Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate over religious, moral objections

Supreme Court ruling may cause tens of thousands to lose birth control coverage

By Robert Barnes

July 8, 2020

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration may allow employers and universities to opt out of the Affordable Care Act requirement to provide contraceptive care because of religious or moral objections.

The issue has been at the heart of an intense legal
battle for nine years — first with the Obama administration sparring with
religious organizations who said offering contraceptive care to their employees
violated their beliefs, and then with the Trump administration broadening an
exemption, angering women’s groups, health organizations and Democratic-led
states.

Stuart Kyle Duncan: the Trump-appointed judge working to ban Louisiana abortions

Stuart Kyle Duncan: the Trump-appointed judge working to ban Louisiana abortions
The ultra-conservative fifth circuit court judge repeatedly upheld the ban in Texas and could result in clinic closures across Louisiana

Rosemary Westwood in New Orleans
Sun 14 Jun 2020

A landmark US Supreme Court ruling expected before the end of June could shutter most of Louisiana’s abortion clinics and precipitate clinic closures in more than a dozen other states.

The case, June Medical Services v Russo, is one of the most high-profile supreme court cases of the year, after Donald Trump appointed two justices who tipped the balance of the court to a conservative majority. And it might never have reached the supreme court without the aid of another Trump-appointed judge, Stuart Kyle Duncan.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/jun/14/stuart-kyle-duncan-the-trump-appointed-judge-working-to-ban-louisiana-abortions

Clergy gather to bless one of the only U.S. clinics performing late-term abortions

Clergy gather to bless one of the only U.S. clinics performing late-term abortions
By Julie Zauzmer
January 29, 2018

When clergy gather at an abortion clinic, it’s usually in protest, outside the building.

Rarely are they huddled inside the clinic, not to condemn but to bless the procedures that happen there.

Yet that was the Rev. Carlton Veazey’s task as he led a prayer in Bethesda on Monday. “God of grace and God of glory, in whom we move and live,” he said, as he opened a prayer for the well-being of the doctor and nurses who facilitate abortions at a clinic here and for their patients. “Keep them safe and keep them strong. And may they always know that all that they do is for Thy glory.”

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/01/29/clergy-gather-to-bless-an-abortion-clinic-which-provides-rare-late-term-abortions-in-bethesda/?utm_term=.71ca310a28a6

U.S.: Catholic bishops’ agenda hurts families

Catholic bishops' agenda hurts families

Jon O'Brien
June 20, 2017

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is kicking off its annual Fortnight for Freedom in Baltimore tomorrow in a celebratory mood. Every year, the bishops present this event as an effort to defend religious liberty. But we’ve seen over five years its real intent: to galvanize the Catholic hierarchy around an agenda to discriminate against and impose their beliefs on Catholics and non-Catholics alike. And their persistence has paid off, despite very little support or attention from everyday Catholics.

Why? Because they found a benefactor unlike any other. President Trump has rewarded the bishops handily for their loyalty during the elections...

Continued at source: Baltimore Sun: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-0621-bishops-fortnight-20170619-story.html