Category Archives: First Amendment

As questions about healthcare and religious freedom spur protests around the country, Rabbi Rachael Pass says her abortion was a sacred choice one she is faithfully fighting to help protect for others.

In 2017, as a rabbinical student in her second year, Rabbi Pass accidentally conceived on the second night of Rosh Hashanah. She took a pregnancy test to confirm her suspicions weeks later on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, a Jewish holiday that occurs at the beginning of every month in the Hebrew calendar, marked by the new moon.

"The very first thing that I thought to do after reading the positive pregnancy test was to say the blessing that you say after using the bathroom," Pass told Insider, describing a prayer of gratitude for good health, asher yatzar. "Like, everything about my decision was Jewish."

Pass said her religious study and rituals were central to her pregnancy, the decision to terminate, and finally her decision to have anabortion: She prayed. She consulted her own rabbi. She studied the religious texts of the Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud for any reference to abortion.

The Torah, also called Jewish Written Law, contains the five books of the Hebrew Bible and is known more commonly to non-Jews as the "Old Testament." The Mishnah is the first major work of Jewish literature and contains oral traditions and commentaries known as the "Oral Torah." The Talmud is the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology.

Jewish law does not hold the belief shared by many abortion opponents that life begins at conception. A 2015 Pew Research survey found that 83 percent of American Jews believe abortion "should be legal in all/most cases" more than any other religious group. Even in conservative readings of Jewish texts, the faith largely protects and in some cases, requires abortion. As such, many Jewish organizations have argued that extreme abortion bans are violations of their First Amendment rights to practice their religion freely.

"Bodily autonomy is extraordinarily important and is extraordinarily valued in all walks of Judaism," Pass said. "And so the fact that the Dobbs decision limits access to abortion, it really does affect Jews' First Amendment right to freedom of religion."

After much consideration, as she held four misoprostol pills in the corners of her mouth to induce her abortion, she hummed along to a liturgy streamed by Central Synagogue Services, a reform congregation in Manhattan.

After her abortion, Pass visited a cleansing Jewish ritual bath, usually visited by observant women seven days after their period, called the mikvah, and ate challah and honey a symbol of sweeter times ahead.

"The challah and honey was sort of the last piece of that ritual. I mean, really, everything about it was Jewish and it was progressive Judaism in some sense," Pass said. "But also, the more I learned and studied, the more I discovered that it was like, my decision was in line with more conservative Judaism as well."

Though Pass said Jewish people may face a unique violation of their religious freedom by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, removing choices for reproductive care concerns all people.

"My concern for Jews is the same concern that I have for every person with a uterus living in America."

Without access to abortion, Pass said, her life would look totally different. She worries about people who have lost choices for reproductive care and those whose physical and mental health will suffer under new laws.

Despite being raised in a pro-choice household and feeling both sure of her decision and believing it was the right one for her, Pass said she experienced some feelings of secrecy and shame following her abortion that she traced, in part, to a sense of pressure and internalized "Christian hegemony" from growing up in Kentucky, which is 76% Christian.

It was when she began feeling like she was keeping her abortion a secret, rather than just a private matter, that she decided it was important to begin sharing her story and wrote an essay about abortion rights for a Jewish publication.

As Pass began to share her experience, in sermons and at community events, she said the feelingsof shame were replaced by ones of purpose. She had originally been inspired to go to rabbinical school after her own rabbi counseled her in a time of need, and found she was able to pay that support forward while counseling people about abortion and faith as they make their own choices around pregnancy.

"My abortion was deeply Jewish and I'm certainly not the only one [who has had one]," Pass said. "I know plenty of other Jews who I talk to, both in my research and in my writing of my articles, and just by people I know, who have had deeply Jewish abortions as well."

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, she has felt more compelled to organize, fundraise and share her perspective that abortion can be a blessing and a choice born of great faith with others.

"I think it's really important for people to hear a rabbinic voice who chose to have an abortion," Pass said. "Not because ofa horrible medical reason, but because pregnancy wasn't right for me for a lot of other reasons."

See the rest here:
Abortion is a Jewish right and a rabbi says hers was a blessing - Business Insider

Abortion-rights protesters shout slogans after tying green flags to the fence of the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 9, 2022. AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe

At the close of its recent term the Supreme Court ruled on the cases of Carson v. Makin and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, rekindling controversy over one of the most enduring issues in American history: religious liberty. Another of this terms blockbuster decisions, Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, underlines the fact that religious beliefs and actions in the public realm matter. Whether the issue concerns religion and education, prayer or reproduction, Americans feel strongly about their religious liberties.

The Carson case came from Maine, where areas with too few students to justify a public high school used public money to pay private schools to educate their students. Under its policy, Maine only allowed nonsectarian private schools or nearby public school districts to receive the funds. Parents who wished to send their students to religious schools argued that the policy discriminated based on religion. The courts majority agreed, ruling that denying state support to students attending religious schools because their schools were religious violated the First Amendments protections on religious freedom.

In the Kennedy case, the court chipped away at decades of rulings that deemed school employees leading prayer an unlawful establishment of religion because it entangled church and state in the act. In the courts revised view, coach Joseph Kennedy possessed a First Amendment right to privately pray after football games on the 50-yard line, permissible even if students joined him in praying.

Religious liberty is one of the earliest civic values associated with the United States, yet defining and defending it has proved a centurieslong process. Both sides of the courts divided opinions claimed to be speaking for religious liberty. This is possible because religious liberty under the Constitution contains both a right to freely exercise religion and a right not to be coerced via the state into accepting someone elses religious practices.

As historians of American religious history and authors of a recent book, The Story of Religion in America, we know that both sides of religious liberty freedom to exercise ones own religion and freedom from being forced to support other peoples religions have a long and important past.

The Constitutions First Amendment, adopted in 1791, defended the free exercise of religion and prohibited the founding of a national church. The leading founders on religious liberty and church-state issues were two Virginians, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

The problem with religious beliefs, Madison believed, was that most often people could not agree on them. Governments, he argued, therefore had no business supporting religion.

Religion could unite people, but most often it did the opposite, dividing people into opposing sides, each believing their side was sacred. In Madisons view, therefore, religious differences made it harder to run a government for the common good.

Over 150 years before religious liberty entered the Constitution, however, it lived in the mind and conduct of Roger Williams, a Puritan educated at the University of Cambridge, who challenged Puritan views on religious liberty and the relationship between church and state.

Roger Williams founded Providence, R.I., as a refuge for people wanting religious liberty. AP Photo/Steven Senne

No sooner had Williams landed in New England than he began challenging Puritan authorities, saying that civil courts should not enforce religious belief and that the right to worship (or not) according to ones own conscience was fundamental. He noted that the American Indians, to whom his fellow Christians considered themselves superior, were often better people than the English.

These beliefs terrified and infuriated Puritan leaders, who promptly banished radical Roger from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He later resurfaced in what became the colony of Rhode Island, where he helped to start a new settlement called Providence, which, unlike Puritan-controlled Massachusetts Bay, would allow religious liberty for all who lived there.

Although the Puritans thought Williams ideas were dangerous, Williams believed the greatest danger was in government trying to legislate religion. He only had to point to the fact that more blood had been shed over religion than just about any issue, with Protestants fighting Catholics, Christians fighting Muslims, and European empires trying to forcibly convert Indigenous Americans in so-called missions.

Yet state-sponsored religion died hard. Massachusetts was the last state to abandon the establishment of a church, in 1833. Even after all the states had abandoned their tax-supported official denominations, states continued to police religious and moral conduct.

Moreover, the states themselves often forced Christianity, and particularly Protestantism, onto the public in school and public policy. This continued until the First Amendments prohibitions on government religion was extended to the states via the 14th Amendment. Two Supreme Court cases involving Jehovahs Witnesses refusing to salute the flag Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) and West Virginia v. Barnette (1943) were important in this. In other words, the right to religious liberty, in the sense of being allowed to refrain from an activity due to ones religious convictions, is less than a long lifetime old.

Up through the Vietnam War, if a man applied to be a conscientious objector, draft boards examined whether he came from a denomination that objected to all participation in war Mennonites or Quakers, for example. Objection to a particular war, or assertion of ones own sincerely held beliefs, did not get one off the hook for draft induction.

This orientation changed beginning with the Supreme Courts recognition of individual conscience in two cases: Welsh v. United States (1970) and Gillette v. United States (1971). The rulings came too late to keep Muhammad Ali from going to jail when he resisted the draft in 1967. But they relocated the locus of conscience to individuals, provided their objections were sincerely held.

In subsequent decades American religious life has itself become more centered on individuals and less on the teachings of religious traditions. Courts have likewise focused more on particular peoples definitions of their own sincerely held beliefs. These shifts are both very American as illustrated in the example of Roger Williams and susceptible to greater social division because citizens and groups beliefs may take them in opposite directions.

Religious liberty in America is perpetually a work in progress. The free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment live in perpetual tension two goods that must be balanced. The Supreme Courts recent religious liberty rulings are fully a part of Americas long struggle to define religious freedom and only the most recent attempt to achieve a balance between goods.

James Hudnut-Beumler, Professor of American Religious History, Vanderbilt Divinity School and James P. Byrd, Professor of American Religious History, Vanderbilt Divinity School

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Original post:
Religious Liberty Has a Long and Messy History And There Is a Reason Americans Feel Strongly About It - Word and Way

Last week the House passed a wide-ranging defense authorization bill that included provisions to assist Afghan refugees and documented Dreamers, in what may be the last opportunity for Congress to enact any immigration reforms this year.

Despite many bills being negotiated and introduced in both chambers during the 117th Congress, which lasts from January 2021 until January 2023, lawmakers have so far failed to come together on any immigration provisions, even as many fear that time is running out before midterm elections potentially change the makeup of Congress.

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act is the sole standalone immigration bill currently under active consideration, but its fate in the Senate despite being passed by the House of Representatives twice is uncertain. The House-passed China competition bill had also contained immigration provisions, but these were stripped out by the Senate as the bill was reduced to merely a bill to fund development of the U.S. semiconductor chips industry.

Thus, the most likely candidate for immigration provisions to become law during this Congress is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was passed by the House on July 14 with three immigration-related amendments. The Senate is negotiating its own version of the NDAA.

The first immigration-related amendment to the NDAA was a bipartisan provision to protect documented Dreamers, the dependent children of green card applicants and employment visa holders who face deportation when they age out of eligibility for the dependent visa status. The amendment was offered by Rep. Deborah K. Ross, D-N.C., and co-sponsored by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa.

Afghan refugees will also see some relief if the House version of the NDAA becomes law. Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., offered two amendments to assist Afghan citizens who assisted the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and are now in danger.

The first amendment would direct the Department of State to dramatically increase processing capacity for Afghan special immigrant visa (SIV) applications and refugee referrals. The SIV system, put in place originally to help Afghan interpreters and others who directly assisted the U.S. military, has been plagued for years by bureaucratic red tape and years-long backlogs.

The second amendment included by Rep. Slotkin would make it easier for Afghan students to receive visas without proving an intent to return to Afghanistan. To be approved, student visa applicants must prove that they do not have immigrant intent, which means they dont intend to stay in the U.S. permanently, but plan to return to their home country when they complete their studies.

However, a different proposal to exempt immigrants with advanced science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degrees in national security-related fields from the numerical green card limits, which have contributed substantially to the massive green card backlog at DOS, was shelved. At the close of FY2021, there were more than 9 million green card applicants stuck in the backlogabout 7.5 million on the family-based side and 1.6 million on the employment-based side. The amendment was cut by the House Rules Committee for containing fees that ran afoul of legislative tax rules.

The House voted by roughly a 3-1 majority to approve the NDAA, which funds and directs policy for the military and other aspects of the U.S. defense. The bill has been passed each year since 1961, and is considered a must-pass piece of legislation. As Caroline Simon noted at RollCall, the inclusion of immigration provisions [in the bill] bodes well for their future at a time when immigration bills rarely move as stand-alone measures.

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act (FWMA) has been passed by the House twice, and aims to modernize the H-2A temporary agricultural visa program. The current food production workforce recruitment system in the U.S. is believed by many to have led to higher food prices, particularly for dairy, meat, and vegetables.

FWMA would allow more farmers to hire temporary H-2A workers year-round, rather than only for short-term, seasonal work. Currently, farms like dairy and pork producers cannot source workers from the H-2A visa program, which has intensified labor shortages in these food industries during a time of already record prices.

The bill would also provide a pathway to legalization for some farm workers a path that does not currently exist for H-2A visa holders.

Despite the fact that the House came together with bipartisan support to pass this bill twice already, FWMA is in peril in the Senate, where negotiators are arguing over a provision that would expand federal law to allow H-2A workers to sue their employers if U.S. labor laws are broken.

The largest agriculture lobbyist in Washington, D.C., the American Farm Bureau Federation, is known for its usually conservative positions and is opposed to the expansion of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protections Act (MSPA) contained in the Farm Workforce bill.

Though Senators have some agreements nailed down, including an agreement to freeze H-2A wages at current levels for 2023, and a deal that would allow employers to hire more H-2A workers year-round than the House originally proposed, the overall fate of the bill remains uncertain.

Because the American Farm Bureau has refused to support expansion of MSPA for H-2A workers, some lawmakers are hesitant to commit to the bill. Some growers feel that the AFBF has sided with growers of only one region of the country, and some lawmakers worry that will come at the expense of a workable solution to sharply increasing food prices in the United States.

As Rep. Doug LaMalf R-Calif., said at a press conference hosted by the American Business Immigration Coalition last week, Do people want to eat in this country or not?

The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) is the bill formerly referred to informally as the China competition bill, a sweeping piece of legislation aimed at countering Chinas economic reach.

The House version of a China competition bill had included some immigration policies, but key Republican senators refused their inclusion. Proposals to ease the path to a green card for immigrants with advanced STEM degrees were slashed from the Senate bill.

The bill has been largely gutted in the Senate, where it has been whittled down merely to CHIPS funding (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors). In its current form, the slimmed-down CHIPS bill will provide a $52 billion investment in semiconductor manufacturing subsidies, as well as tax credits and funding for scientific research.

The Senate first passed its version of USICA in June 2021, but the House did not take it up or otherwise take any action on the bill until this year. Some Senators reportedly believe this delay is responsible for creating the dire shortage situation in which the U.S. now finds itself.

The Senate passed a procedural move to prepare for potential votes on USICA in both the House and the Senate by the end of July. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate are scheduled to recess in August.

With midterm elections looming in November, many are predicting that control of the House could switch from the Democratic to the Republican party. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who would become Speaker of the House if Republicans take the majority, has vowed that he will bring no immigration-related bills to the floor.

McCarthy has also indicated plans to attempt to impeach the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, for supposed dereliction of duty. Republican lawmakers hold Mayorkas singularly accountable for the high level of border crossings in recent years, despite the fact that the implementation of Title 42 at the southern border by the previous administration has dramatically increased border crossings itself.

Other proposed plans by the hopeful-majority include legislation to restart Remain in Mexico, further increasing security at the heavily-militarized border, ramping up arrests and detentions of all immigrants living in the U.S., regardless of whether they are a threat to national security or public safety, and further restricting the already-hobbled asylum system.

These threats by members of Republican party leadership add to the sense of urgency felt on Capitol Hill, as Democrats rush to pass what they can before time runs out in November. Given the breakdown of President Joe Bidens Build Back Better legislation earlier this year, followed by the repeated stalling of bills and removal of immigration reform amendments, immigration advocates in Congress will need to move quickly to save whats left of Bidens immigration agenda, as well.

Read more:
Defense Bill Could Be Last Chance for Immigration Laws This Year - Boundless

UPDATE

9:51 AM PT -- A spokesperson for Amber tells TMZ ... "We believe the court made errors that prevented a just and fair verdict consistent with the First Amendment. We are therefore appealing the verdict. While we realize today's filing will ignite the Twitter bonfires, there are steps we need to take to ensure both fairness and justice."

Amber Heard is officially appealing the verdict in her defamation case with Johnny Depp.

Amber's attorneys filed the necessary documents Thursday in Fairfax County, Virginia to appeal the $10.3 million judgment a jury ordered her last month to pay her ex-husband.

The jury also ruled Johnny had to pay Amber $2 million, so effectively she owes him $8.3 mil in damages -- but she had vowed since the day of the verdict that she would appeal.

As we reported, Amber also filed a motion requesting a new trial, because one of the jurors in the case had come to court when it was actually his father who received the jury summons. However, the judge rejected that motion.

Johnny doesn't seem concerned Amber's followed through on appealing the verdict. His rep tells TMZ ... "The jury listened to the extensive evidence presented during the six-week trial and came to a clear and unanimous verdict that the defendant herself defamed Mr. Depp in multiple instances. We remain confident in our case and that this verdict will stand.

Daily Mail first reported Amber's appeal.

Originally Published -- 9:33 AM PT

Follow this link:
Amber Heard Files Appeal of Verdict in Johnny Depp Defamation Case - TMZ

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Federal and state prosecutors may soon need to decide whether to bring charges against a former president and current front-runner for the Republican nomination.

But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

There is a reason Ive written a number of articles and newsletters about Donald Trumps potential criminal responsibility for his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Investigations evolve. New evidence emerges. And the emerging evidence is increasing Trumps legal risk on two key fronts. First, did he incite the attack on the Capitol on January 6? Second, did he engage in a criminal scheme under Georgia state law to reverse the results of the presidential election there?

To understand the incitement argument, we have to begin with the law. Federal law imposes criminal penalties on any person who incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto.

Yet this provision has to be read in light of the very strong First Amendment interests at play. Americans have a right to call for even violent civil unrest, unless such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. This is a very high bar to clear, but Donald Trumps conduct just might clear it.

Since the mob actually launched its violent assault during and immediately after Trumps speech urging them to march to the Capitol, the imminence test is plainly met. Thus, the key question is whether Trump actually intended the violent result. If you think the answer is obvious (after all, he whipped the crowd into a frenzy and sent them straight to Congress), then think again. The case is closer than you might think.

Trumps legal defense primarily depends on statements and tweets that urged the crowd to march peacefully and patriotically and then later to remain peaceful and stay peaceful. Ordinarily such calls for calm would end the criminal inquiry. How can you prosecute a man for incitement when he calls for peace?

But thats not all he said, and thats not all he did. As I explained at length in a previous story in The Atlantic, the totality of the circumstances changes the equation. He summoned the mob (promising the protest would be wild), theres evidence he knew the crowd was armed, and he told that same crowd to fight like hell. Other speakers urged trial by combat and asked the crowd to sacrifice their blood, their sweat, their tears and even perhaps their very lives.

Then, when the attack was under way, he inflamed the crowd by tweeting that Mike Pence didnt have the courage to do what was necessary. Did yesterdays hearing add anything to this narrative? Yes, modestly. Heres a summary of the key evidence, from The New York Times:

As a mob of his supporters assaulted the Capitol, former President Donald J. Trump sat in his dining room off the Oval Office, watching the violence on television and choosing to do nothing for hours to stop it, an array of former administration officials testified to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack in accounts laid out on Thursday.

In a final public hearing of the summer and one of the most dramatic of the inquiry, the panel provided a panoramic account of how, even as the lives of law enforcement officers, members of Congress and his own vice president were under threat, Mr. Trump could not be moved to act until after it was clear that the riot had failed to disrupt Congresss session to confirm his election defeat.

If I was standing in front of a jury, Id ask them to ponder a questionif Trump truly wanted only a peaceful protest, why did he passively allow the horrific violence to unfold? Why was it ultimately up to Mike Pence to skip the chain of command and call out the National Guard?

The answer, Id argue, was that everything was happening precisely as Trump had intended. The mob was supposed to march to the Capitol. It was supposed to stop the certification. Why would Trump call it off when it was doing exactly what he wanted it to do?

Again, there are strong defenses to any prosecution for incitement. Trumps calls for peace may convince the Department of Justice that an incitement prosecution is simply too tough to mount, in spite of all the additional evidence outlined above. Or Trumps calls for peace may convince a judge that the high standard of incitement simply isnt met.

But that doesnt mean Trump is safe. To understand why, lets turn briefly to Georgiathe state where evidence of his alleged criminality has always been the most compelling.This week Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis designated the 16 Republicans who signed certificates falsely claiming they were Georgias presidential electors to be targets of her criminal probe into efforts to overturn Georgias presidential election results.

The reason for the target designation is not hard to see. Georgia election law not only makes it a crime to solicit election fraud; it specifically criminalizes willfully tampering with any electors list, voters certificate, numbered list of voters, ballot box, voting machine, direct recording electronic (DRE) equipment, electronic ballot marker, or tabulating machine. (Emphasis added.)

Indeed, as the criminal investigation plays out, the fake-electors scheme may well be the most clearly illegal element of the entire effort to overturn the election. Their designations represent a series of concrete, overt acts that move beyond verbal bluster about election fraud and raise the questionwho initiated, approved, and/or directed the scheme?

As Ive written before, Trumps recorded demand that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger find 11,780 votesalong with his not-so-veiled threat that Raffensperger faced a big risk of criminal prosecution if he failedwas already quite legally problematic. Add this threat to the fake-electors scheme, and the elements of a criminal conspiracy come clearly into view.

At the end of the day, it is highly likely that the key question for federal and state prosecutors wont be Can we make a case against Trump? Instead, it will be Should we make a case against Trump? Should the government seek to prosecute and imprison a former president of the United States? Does that calculus change if that former president is also the current front-runner for the Republican nomination?

I wont pretend the answers are easy. I wont pretend prosecution isnt a risk. But as the evidence accumulates, the moral and political imperative becomes apparent. The former president isnt a king. Hes a citizen of a constitutional republic, and citizens should stand trial when the evidence indicates they may have committed serious crimes.

Related:

The Spiders That Choose Death

By Katherine J. Wu

Among spiders, sex doesnt just create life; it can also end it. Males of many speciesincluding orb-weaving spiders, widow spiders, and wolf spidersfind their fortunes turning on a dime, as the females theyve seduced begin to devour them alive, sometimes even before insemination is complete. Most eight-legged bachelors go to great lengths to avoid being eaten by their lover: Some try to massage her into a stupor, or bind her legs up with silk; others play dead, or detach their own legs to distract her with a precoital snack. Its all in service of survival, so the male might live to mate another day.

Read the full article.

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Kate Lindsay contributed to this newsletter.

Originally posted here:
The Criminal Case Against Trump Is Getting Stronger - The Atlantic

Hadley Arkes, a longtime commentator on abortion, natural law, and constitutional jurisprudence, joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss the arguments that should be made to defend unborn human life in America.

Arkes notes that the term value judgment is a term that we began to use with Nietzsche. When people lost their confidence that they could speak about moral truth. So, they could speak about things [that] have moral significance as we impart value to them.

So, the matter of the value judgment is whether some of us, what do we care enough about? How much are we willing to value the life of that offspring in the womb? How much do we value the efforts to offer care for that life?

Arkes points the way to a principled defense of unborn human life that average citizens, legislators, and judges can draw upon to instill the principle of equality for the unborn under law in America.

Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript:

Richard Reinsch: Hello, Im Richard Reinsch. Welcome to The Daily Signal Podcast. Today, were talking with Hadley Arkes, an American political scientist and Edward Ney professor of jurisprudence and American institutions emeritus at Amherst College, where he has taught since 1966. He is the founder and director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding.

Hadley, thank you so much for joining us to talk about this recent [Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization] decision and the future of abortion policy and jurisprudence in American law.

Hadley Arkes: Well, thanks. So good to see you, Richard. Thanks so much for having me on.

Reinsch: Hadley, a question here at the beginning. You are a well-known writer, legal philosophical commentator on the Constitution and on what you argue for, the natural law underpinnings of the Constitution. Youve written extensively about abortion for decades. When the Dobbs decision was handed down on June 24th, this past month, what went through your mind? What about this moment? What did you experience?

Arkes: Well, it was, of course, with any reservations we may have about it, a great moment. I was active in this movement just before Roe v. Wade. And it was hard to imagine that this thing would come down even in our lifetimes. It took, lets see, 11 Republican appointments after Roe v. Wade finally to get five votes willing to do this.

The point of this appointment, it runs back to those lawyers in Roe v. Wade. Those lawyers from Texas, who assembled the most elegant brief, drawing on the updated findings of embryology, woven with principled reasoning, to make this critical point. That offspring in the womb has never been anything other than human from its first moments. That it receives its nourishment from its mother, but has never been really a part of the mother. Well, the dissenters in Roe never spoke those words.

The point of this appointment for me, and the source of regret and foreboding here, is that the conservative majority in Dobbs did not speak those words. It sent the matter back to the states on the premise expressed by Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh that we cannot know that the fetus represents a human life. We begin with that point of official ignorance upon this matter. We sent it back to the states on the premise put in place, in fact, by [the now-deceased] Justice [Antonin] Scalia, that we leave it to people in the separate states to reach their own value judgment on when human life begins.

Now, value judgment, as you remember, is a term that we began to use with Nietzsche. When people lost their confidence that they could speak about moral truth. So, they could speak about things, have moral significance as we impart value to them. So, the matter of the value judgment is whether some of us, what do we care enough about? How much are we willing to value the life of that offspring in the womb? How much do we value the efforts to offer care for that life? Well, that was missing.

Ive said that this decision, I compare it to the Emancipation Proclamation. That Lincoln could not free the slaves in the border states. But everyone understood that what brought the Emancipation Proclamation forward was a strong anti-slavery conviction. And thats the way it was understood. So, my hope is that this decision, so artfully done by Justice [Samuel] Alito, will generate that kind of energy for the pro-life side.

Reinsch: Hadley, you had an essay in First Things the day that the Dobbs opinion was issued titled The End of the Beginning of the End of Abortion. And youve been articulating here that the decision sends abortion policy back to the states. You are an author of a number of books, important books, on natural law, natural rights, and the Constitution. One thats meant a lot to me, First Things, as well as Natural Rights and the Right to Choose, which is very much about abortion, and Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths.

It is now the opportunity, though, for those in the state legislatures to step forward and make these natural law, natural rights arguments on behalf of the unborn in a republican process. It seems to me that that takes more time, more courage, more thought, but might be more consistent with the republican institutions of our government.

Arkes: Well, it is a fine moment. And you might say that we will have those laws in the pro-life states. Casting protections on the child from the first moments. Those laws are sure to be challenged by the defendants of abortion. And when they are, the conservative judges will no longer have that vassal test of viability.

Justice Alito did away with that. He raised the question of, why is it we impute value to the life of the child after viability, but dont respect that life before viability? In other words, hes telling us that these lives make no difference. That were dealing with the same entity. The same small human being simply going through different phases. So, it makes no sense to be speaking of 15 weeks, seven weeks.

Now, my sense, Richard, is that with the conservative judges in the states, and federal judges confronting challenges to those laws in the pro-life states, when theyre faced with that question, then I think the most natural reaction will be to reach out to Justice Alitos opinion in Dobbs, where he sort of puts the pieces in place for the judges to put them together and think through them.

And at that moment, the judges may be induced to speak the words that the dissenters in Roe never spoke when they were given that marvelous brief for the lawyers from Texas. And the words that the conservative majority in this case consciously omitted saying, steered around saying, about the human standing of that child in the womb. The judges confronting those challenges to the laws of the pro-life states will find themselves, theyll find that they will have to be speaking those words in order to explain their position.

So, I find that this kind of the interesting turn of history here. But also I think in the, as you suggest, pushing it into the pro-choice states, into the blue states, opinion there is not as monolithic as we think. I saw some recent surveys saying that 72% of the public in one sample were willing to support this restraint or restriction of abortion at 15 weeks. The kind of provision that was sustained in the case from Mississippi.

We may also have our Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, to protect the life of child who survives the [abortion]. Now, that is still the most disarming, most modest bill you could bring forth. We could bring that forth in the blue states. And you may find a kind of crack in the monolith of pro-abortion in those states.

Reinsch: Going back, you said pro-life states or states more inclined to protect, offer protections to the unborn, that those laws will be challenged immediately. Talk about the nature of those challenges. How will they be challenged?

Arkes: Well, simply to say that this is too draconian. Whats the ground in which you would offer protection for the child at that moment? The argument will be, this is simply an imposition of religious conviction behind this conversation. And I mean, Gerard Baker, in The Wall Street Journal, who was really quote pro-life in his dispositions, remarked on these statutes, protecting barring abortion early in pregnancy. He said that there were, some of them were too draconian.

Well, why would somebody like that regard that as draconian, if not that people have talked themselves into the position that somehow it makes a difference. But the offspring of the womb has reached the point where its more recognizable with all the features, the toes, the squinting, the fingers that we identify with human beings as we know them where theyre fully formed. And somehow abortions earlier, that just dont have the same kind of significance in removing something we would recognize as a human being.

So, were going to hear some kind of version of that. Somehow, its too draconian for reasons we cannot quite explain. That after all the, oh, look, the supreme, the defenders, the people who have given us this doctrine of conservative jurisprudence have argued to us that the federal judges cant make moral judgment about when human life begins. These are matters of value judgements for people in separate states.

Were not sending the issue back to the states on the premise that there is a human life here. And were inviting you to consider how you would reconcile the taking of this human life with your other laws and homicide. The grounds youd demand in any other case. So, lets say, it is not being sent back to the states. I was saying, theres no central truth here that were declaring or putting in place as the predicate of the situation now.

Its a matter of you making value judgements. So, the opponents say, Oh, this is simply a matter of your opinions. I thought I had a constitutional right. And youre telling me that Im losing it as I move from one state to another. And I lose it because 51% of the people around me have a different opinion or belief about when life begins.

So, the regards in which weve sent the matter back to the states sort of invites those kinds of challenge. And they could be met only by someone actually stepping up and speaking that inescapable truth. That even the conservative majority has tried to be careful not to speak.

Reinsch: You have written that you wanted an opinion, and you are, I think, been articulating that in this interview, an opinion from the court that protected human life from the moment of conception, as a constitutional matter. Thus, prohibiting abortion nationally. Whats your constitutional authority for that judgment?

Arkes: Well, thats not exactly how I would put it. I didnt expect that to happen. But once youre clear that were dealing with a human life, well, then of course, the 14th Amendment kicks in for the Congress and the federal court to make judgements here.

When the protections of the law are removed from a whole class of human beings. In this case, unborn children, human beings. We saw this at work in the 40s, 50s, to the 60s. As the federal courts worked themselves through the coils of federalism. To explain finally how the federal government could be, and Congress could be more directly involved in protecting black people in the South, when those protections of law were withdrawn. So, now again, Richard, I didnt think the court would be in position to argue that outright. A number of us have been arguing for years now. For 40 years, some of us.

Its quite open to Congress, under the 14th Amendment, to recognize after all, what do you do with the human life? The deal is that youre dealing with the human life. Laws of homicide have never been indifferent to the question of, is it height, weight, how tall it is. The killing of an older man cannot be a worse homicide than the killing of a small child.

But once those things are in place, you say, Well, what is your problem now? If youre creating a virtual license to take life without rendering a justification, in the case of small human beings in the womb, you are adamantly withdrawing the protections of the law from a whole class of human beings.

Now, what is it? I think that its unfathomable. People have tended to use that line from Henry James to say that Some of our friends have made themselves victims of a perplexity from which a single spark of direct perception could have spared them.

Reinsch: On the 14th Amendment: Many have argued that, person, in that amendment was not, did not incorporate the unborn. So, a fear that it would be an activist move by a federal judiciary that would further inflame opinion, and the move would be to allow it to be settled in the states.

It seems to me that it may not be settled in the states. It may be settled in the Congress. In which case, arguments arguing for this broader understanding of person in the 14th Amendment would inevitably come to the fore.

Arkes: Well, I think it is going to move to Congress. But look, this matter, this is not a person. So, we have people arguing, well, do those protections of the Constitution extend to women? Because extensions matter. Of course, they extend to women. When were talking about, those beings were the bearers of rights. Those are human beings. You dont shift the labels of what theyre calling the person.

Thats the distraction here. It says nothing about people in wheelchairs, or we assume that theyre not somehow outside the protections of the Constitution. No, the presumption must be that all those provisions in the Constitution, speaking of rights, or speaking about those beings who cant be the bearers of rights, and those are human beings. And I think the burden would lie on the other side. But getting to the respect, to the matter of Congress.

It was the court with Roe versus Wade that suddenly made abortion the business of the federal government and poisoned our politics.

Now youd say, Well, now weve returned [abortion] to the states. But abortion is still the business; inescapably the business of the national government. Now, before Roe v. Wade, of course, we were having federal aid to hospitals, major and minor. That aid goes on. We do not raise the question as of whether any conditions should be attached to that aid, either to promote abortions, to discourage abortions, to provide protections of conscience for doctors and lawyers who [dont] wish to become complicit in abortion. The decision adopts, renders, gives us nothing that governs those judgments. Those judgements are still there to be made.

So, its still open to Congress and the executive, in the instruments that come under their hands, to use those instruments to promote abortions and approve abortions. Sustain them in the District of Columbia, or military and diplomatic outposts abroad, on territories of the United States.

I think their people say, Aha, finally, we return the matter to the states happily. We can wash our hands in this matter. We dont have to think of this anymore with the federal government. But this is like the tar baby. No, you cant let go of it. It is there. It comes back in many ways, and one way or another, youre going to have to be making these judgements on whether the federal authority is going, the federal funding is going, to be used to approve abortions, discourage them, sustain them.

Reinsch: As Im listening to you. I think of the disputes you just mentioned at the federal level. Spending disputes, disputes over religious freedom, religious conscience. Those of course can be protected by congressional statute. Should be protected. But what I hear, Im also hearing you, you seem to be reflecting Lincolns judgment. Were either going to become all slave, or all free, Lincoln said.

Is that sort of your version of what you think about the idea of returning abortion policy to the states? We really cant live in a country with 27 states with protections and the other 23 without.

Well, no, we could. The difference at Lincolns time was that the Supreme Court was establishing the precedent that black people have no rights that whites were obliged to respect. And if there was a right not to be dispossessed, and buy property, would I enter into a territory that will be extended fondly to the, if its a constitutional right, it should be binding in other states as well. But here we have something quite different. But I do think that the

Well, first of all, it shows a kind of disconnect between the pro-life movement and what conservative jurisprudence has been offering all those years. Whether it be, people were drawn to Washington in the worst weather at Washington in January for the March for Life. At times, the pictures were pictures of babies who were being poisoned. The concern among that crowd marching there with the dismembering or poisoning of babies, no one was carrying the sign saying, Ah, the real villainy of this moment was the court has overnight, its moved beyond this rightful jurisdiction.

So, were faced with the situation, which we know. We remove the aspect out of abortion as a constitutional right, but abortions will thrive massively. Be performed in massive method still, in the blue states. In California, Illinois, but now with even fewer, with no restrictions. With New York, before Roe versus Wade, were starting to ease its laws to allow abortions. But now, after 50 years of this abortion tourism.

Arkes: Tourism, yeah. That people have talked themselves, not only that its a regrettable public choice, but its a public good. It should be sustained. And we should give vouchers to women coming in from other states who cant get the abortion. Its now seen as a public good. So, its flourishing.

And my concern, though, is that when the court brought it back to the states on these terms, wed say, Well, where is the dynamism moving? I think the pro-life movement is going to show real energy as it has. What has brought us to this point is precisely the fact that the public were not, we have to look 10 years after [Brown v. Board of Education] was decided on racial segregation in schools.

Ten years after that, were able to have the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban racial discrimination in those private businesses open to transactions with the public and so on. And this is here, but 49 years since Roe v. Wade was decided, there has not been any kind of consensus of that kind.

The country has been sharply divided. The people who thought there were, that there was something wrong about this, have not been dislodged from that conviction. But we have this situation. We say the court has sent it back. We declare no truth about this matter. Then, people, the separate states are free to sort of license abortion to highest levels.

As you say, I dont give up the possibility of the pro-life movement, even in the blue states, can start having its effect. But you look at the whole thing. And my concern is, what has been planted in this decision that imparts a pro-life movement to this matter? You send it back to the states saying, as Justice Kavanaugh says, We cannot tell you when human life begins. And thats just a patent falsehood. Theres something strange, a mystique, about a jurisprudence that takes it as a grounding point in that way, but must, thats a falsehood.

Reinsch: I do think that the Alito opinion in pulling down one of the major progressive constitutional milestones performs an incredible work for the country and the way he wrote about it. The dishonest arguments made on behalf of Roe by her counsel, in that opinion. Trying to appeal to the common law historically, thus distorting the record and being willing to do whatever it took to get to that opinion in 1973.

I thought that was, he held it up to withering ridicule and scorn. I thought that was necessary and good. I also thought in the opinion, its sort of like, well, whats the first step we can take here in terms of, what we have to do first is just cabin and collar substantive due process jurisprudence. And I thought Alito did in the opinion. He did it marvelously well. And just showing how limited this should actually be. And he sets the stage for a new way of thinking about these claims. Thats much more favorable to a restrained jurisprudential model.

And I think thats, in a way he is returning the Constitution to a more fixed understanding, and also returning things back to the people in a republican sense. And it will be up to the people now, either in Congress or in the states to argue, affirmatively as you are saying. Which I agree with your natural law analysis. What do you make of that?

Arkes: I think that was a just profoundly important opinion. I think the work that Sam Alito did was just formidable in dismantling [then-Supreme Court Justice] Harry Blackmuns opinion brick by brick. But as also, as you point out, pointing up the false history that had been incorporated in the framing of that decision.

But look, looking at the record of the common law [or the major move in the United States in the mid-19th century by the medical profession against abortion]. The strength of the laws on abortion in states, its an oppressive list. But if you go back to the premise that we dont know when human life begins, and its all a value judgment, we should not have been astonished that the people on the other side have looked at that opinion and said, Oh, all you have given us is a reflect, a record of what people in an earlier day believed about abortion.

It couldve made a profound difference if wed said, What this record reveals is an understanding taking hold, amplified by embryology, that we are dealing not with nothing less than the, a human life, thats been human from its first moments. That is what the record reveals, not simply a catalog of what people in an earlier day believed about this matter.

I think it affects things at every moment in that way. Which is why so many people have decided to just dismiss that impressive historical record about the laws about abortion.

Reinsch: Justice [Clarence] Thomass concurring opinion. He says, quote, The courts substantive due process jurisprudence has caused great harm to the country. End quote. I know you agree with that statement. He makes the argument, perhaps a lot of prior precedents that have come under substantive due process like Griswold [v. Connecticut], like Obergefell [v. Hodges], like Lawrence v. Texas, the proper way for those to be considered would be under the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment, to see if they actually should be protected rights. What did you make about Justice Thomas opinion?

Arkes: Well, I think he is wrong. As I say, substantive due process are us. The Constitution said the due process clause was carrying with it now, all the great principles. The constitutional principles that we associate with a natural law. Take a look at this difference, for example, Roe versus Wade. Can you say too, Richard, the difference between these two different paths for judging that issue?

You could say, Ah, theres nothing in the Constitution about abortion. Therefore, when we choose out the due process and according something substantive, the lawyers for Texas as an alternative path said, We can show you. The ground, an embryology woven with principal reasoning, by which we show you that those laws in Texas were justified in casting protections of law around these unborn children. We dont have to talk about substantive due process.

Justice Thomas has been challenged on their very point. They say the decisions on Griswold, and contraception, and interracial marriage, of course. The conservative majority has taken the line that these become fundamental only because they are rooted in our tradition. And the other side says, Well, take a look at the very standard you put forth.

Contraception wasnt rooted by our tradition. It was in fact outlawed in a number of states at the time Griswold came down. Theres still states in, when Loving v. Virginia came out on interracial marriage, well, theres still states that bar marriage across racial lines. If you take that line, you will leave yourself open to those people who say everything out of, your very terms, the very terms of your argument, what you put forth. Yes. All those decisions still are open to challenge. As opposed to saying, we think it, there was a compelling reason to explain why it was wrong to bar marriage across racial lines.

A compelling reason to explain why someone should be protected from a policy of compulsory sterilization in the Skinner case in Oklahoma. Or why people may justify that having access to contraception.

Thats a different way of doing it. But its a matter of reaching judgments about why these early decisions were justified. As opposed to saying, Oh, no, it wasnt in the list of things contained in the Constitution.

Look, let me place you one other test if youre open to it. Remember Brown versus Board? The very same day that Brown, the companion case, v. Board, on the segregation of schools, was Bolling v. Sharpe. Segregation in the District of Columbia. Well, when the court did Brown v. Board, as you remember, they invoked the equal protection clause of the Constitution. When it turned to the District of Columbia, they couldnt invoke the equal protection clause, because this club is not a state. It doesnt come under the due process, under the equal protection clause.

Now I can give you a good argument to show why that is a fit argument in this case. But I have attempted not to raise the question with Justice Thomas, when I see him again. Do you think that decision in Bolling v. Sharpe on racial segregation gave us another one of those instances of the dreaded substantive due process?

Reinsch: So the question of substantive due process and privileges and immunities, thats what I took Justice Thomas to be saying. Thats a different round of analysis that he would put these cases through.

Arkes: Well, I wrote a book once called Beyond the Constitution, containing a chapter of life among the clauses. Where youd see judges utterly agreeing about the ground of the judgment thing. Why you cant keep indigent people out of California? But theyre arguing fiercely over which clause in the Constitution does the work. And what they failed to see was that the underlying structure of their moral argument was exactly the same. Theyre trying to explain why it was not justified to turn people away from a state, simply because they were poor. Not that they were fleeing criminal, fleeing indictment or trials. Not because theyre carrying contagion.

We explain the ground, explain why it may be wrongful to turn them away because theyre poor. Now youll find that if you look at these matters, an argument for equal protection can be recast on, as a matter of due process. You find almost any of these arguments can be refitted to any clause. Yes, they can be refitted to the privileges and immunities clause, but as common data support, the privileges and immunities clause simply refer to the same essential liberties, essentially.

Why are you justified in restraining the freedom of this people to move to another state? To have access to higher education and so on. Its going to be, no matter what you call it, whether use this clause or that clause, its going to come down to the same thing. You still have to explain why it is that people have a right to have access to this surgery. Why itd be unjustified to bar that right to them. Or on the other hand, why the unborn child would have a claim to the protection of the law. Why itd be unwarranted to withhold that protection.

So again, my sense, sometimes these points, you may use the [letter of marque and reprisal]. Almost any of these clauses can be made to fit. This is we, even if we didnt have the equal protection clause in the Constitution. Its just a deep principle of the law that you treat like cases in an equal way, right? That thats a deep principle for law. The logic of the equal protection clause is there.

John Quincy Adams said, That right to petition the government is simply implicit in the idea of a free government. It will be there even if that right had not been mentioned, the First Amendment. It would be there even if there were no First Amendment. It would be there even if there were no Constitution. So, and all these things, I think, you know me, Richard. If you go to a dentist he will, like, give you root canal. You come to me, and I give you natural law.

Reinsch: All right, question for you on the dissenting opinion. What struck you about the dissenting opinion? The last-ditch effort to defend Roe and [Planned Parenthood v. Casey]?

Arkes: What was remarkable is that the only persons with, who are bearers of interest, bearers with people that have stake in the outcome, are the people who are pregnant or favorable. What is left out of the scheme is the child whos given no weight or standing in the whole system.

Its rather like Bill Clinton when he vetoed the bill on partial-birth abortion and expressed sympathy for the woman who was barred from having that surgery, when she thought she had need for it, but had nothing to say about the child whose head was being crushed, and brain sucked out, and removed from the body of the mother.

The remarkable thing is in that opinion, that theres no recognition at all that were dealing in the case of an unborn child, with another life, a human life that is part of the equation here.

Of course, the case, it opened though, even a bizarre way, with [then-Justice Stephen] Breyer saying, According to the court now, a woman has no right to abortion from the earliest point in the pregnancy. But, of course, thats exactly what the court avoided saying.

The court, of course, she still may have access to an abortion for the earliest points of the pregnancy. If that is provided in this, the separate states. Justice Alito and his colleagues were doing nothing to deprive women of that right to abortion early in the pregnancy. That all would be put back into the separate state. So again, it was that opinion. Oh, Justice Breyer sounded at times like a messenger coming in from another out of season, from another galaxy. This is though it made very little contact with the substance of the argument that it was ostensibly resistant.

Reinsch: Hadley, thank you so much for joining us to discuss the Dobbs opinion and the future of abortion jurisprudence in America. Thank you so much.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please emailletters@DailySignal.comand well consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular We Hear You feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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Whither the Future of Abortion Law - Daily Signal

So many of your letter-writers (Douglas Johnston, Why are protesters allowed to break the law? July 6, TribLIVE) seem to forget that protesting for the redress of grievances is enshrined in the Constitution. It is as sacred as the Second Amendment. In fact it is a First Amendment right, which might even make it more important than the Second. And thousands of people a year are not killed as people exercise it, as they are with the Second.

The Supreme Court has ruled at various times that protesters are protected in myriad circumstances. Protesters can gather and harass clients in front of Planned Parenthood facilities, for example. Members of that church from Kansas are even within their rights to loudly protest and disrupt funerals for fallen soldiers. Now, all of a sudden, were supposed to feel sorry for justices who I believe committed perjury to get approved by the Senate, and who are gleefully putting into place their own right-wing agenda. The snowflakes are getting a dose of the medicine theyve administered to many others.

Six justices are set to take away all privacy rights from all Americans, and we cannot just sit back and let that happen. But what other recourse do we, the majority, have?

Mary Beth Walling

North Huntingdon

Read the original:
Letter to the editor: Protesters are protected - TribLIVE

Ian Waldie / Getty Images

Library workers across Oklahomas Metropolitan Library System (MLS) were shocked this week after receiving instructions to avoid using the word abortion and not to help patrons locate abortion-related information on either library computers or their own devices. Workers were warned that they could be held legally liable and face penalties under the state's abortion laws.

If a staff member gives any information on how to obtain an abortion, then that person may be found personally liable and will also make MLS liable, says a memo, which was obtained by Motherboard after being emailed to workers at one library branch in the Oklahoma City area. Civil penalties include a $10,000 fine plus jail time and the staff member will lose their job due to being informed by MLS and disregarding the warning.

The message also asks library workers to be wary of people who try to trick staff into giving them information on how to obtain an abortion so they can report them to authorities. Branch managers have given similar guidance to library workers across the system, according to workers who spoke with Motherboard on condition of anonymity.

On Tuesday, one MLS library worker took a screenshot of the message and posted it to the subreddit r/Libraries. Motherboard has since confirmed the post's authenticity through interviews with library workers and internal documents from the library system.

This is very dystopian, a MLS library worker, who asked to remain anonymous because they feared retaliation, told Motherboard. This is dystopian to not be able to ask questions. I mean, you can ask; we just cant tell you.

An email sent to library workers at Oklahoma's Metropolitan Library System

Abortions have been mostly unavailable in Oklahoma since May when Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law banning abortion past the sixth week of pregnancy, which can also be enforced by private civil action. Oklahoma now has a total abortion ban, because of a trigger law that took effect shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

With 19 branch locations and more than 400 employees, MLS is the largest library system in Oklahoma. Internal documents obtained by Motherboardincluding meeting minutes from a monthly managers meeting held on July 14include talking points for how to communicate system-wide about the gag order for library workers.

Library managers were specifically instructed Dont talk about it, and especially dont use the word abortion, and were told that libraries and individual workers could be held liable in a civil suit for providing information that leads to someone procuring an abortion, according to the meeting minutes. The notes also say that librarians can direct patrons toward medical databases, to a computer to run their own search, or to state statutes if patrons have questions about laws pertaining to the topic.

The library worker who spoke to Motherboard is concerned about who has been given the authority in MLS to make these decisions, which seemingly contradict the American Library Associations Principles of Intellectual Freedom. They note that within the Metropolitan Library Commission of Oklahoma Countywhich comprises 27 members who represent each municipality with a library or library extension located within its boundariesonly the librarys executive director, Larry White, holds a Masters of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree.

If you don't have an MLIS, why are you trying to make decisions about the library? It feels like the Roe v. Wade thing all over again, the library worker said. Youve got people under the library managers who are required to have further education than them.

Notes from a July 14th managers meeting instructing library workers not to use the word 'abortion' or assist patrons looking for abortion information.

A representative from the Metropolitan Library System did not respond to Motherboards request for comment.

In a memo emailed to library staff Thursday morning, MLS executive director Larry White wrote that the guidance on abortion was sent in response to an initial review by the library system's legal team.

The updated guidance states that library workers should "provide factual information" about what abortion is and the state and federal laws surrounding it, but "should not offer opinions surrounding the law" or "actively assist anyone in breaking the laws of Oklahoma." The memo further states that MLS is "tightening our existing technology security and record keeping" to provide better anonymity for those seeking abortion information.

"This guidance is being provided because of our responsibility to protect MLS from the risk of civil liability, which we do for all legal matters," White wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Motherboard. "This guidance is being balanced by our responsibilities to provide information services to our community, to comply with the existing laws of this state, support of the 1st Amendment, our Freedom to Read statements, and our professional ethics in this process."

Like Texas, Oklahoma has a law that lets individuals sue one another if they believe someone has obtained an abortion or assisted someone in obtaining an abortion. This means a person seeking abortion information could easily be an agitator using the law to target library workers.

Nadine Farid Johnson, the Washington director of PEN America, said MLS actions show how the Dobbs decision is part of a worrying new trend that has turned public libraries into a culture-war battleground, and threatened to undermine basic First Amendment protections. Recently, librarians have been targeted by right-wing agitators over their inclusion of childrens books on LGBTQ+ topics, and libraries hosting Pride-themed events have been met with hostile disruptions from armed groups across the country.

We know that access to abortion care requires access to information, Johnson told Motherboard. When the sharing of information is criminalized or otherwise prohibited, free expression rights are imperiled. The blocking of access to abortion information on public library computers and the silencing of librarians, if true, constitutes a significant impingement on the right to access information, and infringes these public employees rights as they seek to serve their patrons by sharing information that is arguably of public concern.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Associations Office of Intellectual Freedom, said that ALA stands firm in opposing any effort to suppress access to information about abortion whether as a medical procedure or as a matter of public concern and individual liberty.

Access to information in a library is a First Amendment-protected activity and ALA will defend that right and work with libraries, library workers, and library users to protect it, as well as support and defend library workers whose positions are jeopardized because of their defense of their users right to freely access information, Caldwell-Stone told Motherboard.

Its safe to assume the conversations happening at MLS in Oklahoma are also happening within library systems in other states with abortion restrictions. Library workers worry this forces information professionals across the country to choose between breaking the law and violating their duty as public servants. The library worker from MLS anticipates that despite this, librarians are going to help patrons procure reliable abortion information.

A lot of us are really tempted, the library worker said. I dont know if everybodys talking out their butt, but I strongly believe that morality-wise, anybody who cares more about their positions in a library than they do about their income from the library will support their moralities and give the information anyway.

Update: This article was updated to include a memo sent by MLS executive director Larry White.

Link:
Oklahoma Threatens Librarians: Dont Use the Word Abortion - VICE

Back in my day, I remember when The Church and The State at least pretended to operate in separate spheres. While you could debate over if the Pledge of Allegiance had us mouthing praise to a nation under a Christian God, it definitely wasnt under something secular like a Groove. In the olden times, the Elephant People espoused the importance of different spheres of action. It was a big selling point, actually. The state was supposed to make limited policy decisions that actually impacted people pave roads and maintain the prison population via the trifecta that is the War on Drugs, over-policing in communities of color, and strong on law and order rhetoric. Oh, and pardon turkeys. Presidents love doing that crap. The Church was supposed to do the rest: give thoughts and prayers, feed the homeless usually on the condition that they receive those thoughts and prayers, etc.

Now that the Supreme Court has made a bigger waste of the Establishment Clause than whatever amount of money Sony dedicated to making Morbius, things have gone topsy turvy. Given that the right to prayer includes pressuring people into being a part of your free exercise against their will, you should expect these once-separate spheres to coincide in strange ways. Like Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett forgoing law making and opting instead for the power of prayer to cull mass shootings.

Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett, during aFox Newsappearance on Wednesday, suggested that expelling demons could be a way to cut back on mass shootings.

Bennett, who served as education secretary under President Ronald Reagan, weighed in on the function of red flag laws like those in Illinois that are designed to keep guns out of the hands of people who are deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

Bennett, during hisFox News appearance, said parents, schools and police officers are among the people who can pay more attention to potential red flags for mass violence. But, you know, you may need an exorcist, too, he suggested. Bennett added that young men accused of mass shootings have deeply spiritual problemsIts a deeply spiritual void, I think, that these young men have in their hearts and their souls, and I think it needs to be addressed, Bennett said.

Finally, someone has the answers! It is not a good answer a bad one, even but it is one! And it is spreading like umm Im trying to make a metaphor about replicating bits of fish and loaves of bread. The juices arent flowing so please just take this Hail Mary and a tweet for good measure.

I think Louie is on to something. If prayer is the answer, it has to mean something drastic must be done. And quickly. Because prayer definitely wasnt enough to prevent a White supremacist from opening fire and killing nine churchgoers in the House of the Lord back in 2015. Or the 26 killed in a mass shooting at a San Antonio church. Or the three killed in at a church potluck. Or any one of the 314 mass shootings from this year.

Others have different solutions to Americas mass murder problem:

Although opponents of sensible gun controlthe kind that prevails throughout most of the civilized worldcontinue to put the spotlight on the shooters motivations or unstable mental states, these are cynical diversions from the one obvious truth: The common thread in all of the countrys revolting mass shootings is the absurdly easy access to guns. The science is clear: Restrictions work, and its likely that even more limitations would save thousands of livesMake protest signs. Start marching. Push lawmakers to finally break the partisan gridlock that has made moments of silence a regular observance. The National Rifle Association and its minions must be defeated. Its up to us because the victims of gun violence are tragically and devastatingly not here to protest themselves.

That said, Science.org is probably just some leftist fake media outlet anyway. All that data and peer-reviewed research aint nothing on our Second Amendment and a good Our Father. Prayer and policing doors are the only defense this country has against firearms, after all. And if you dont like it, you can get out.

Wildfire! Its spreading like wildfire! Why didnt I just say that earlier?

We Know What The Problem Is [Science]Fox News Commentator Implies Exorcists Can Curb Mass Shootings [Huff Post]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord in the Facebook groupLaw School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim,a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email atcwilliams@abovethelaw.comand by tweet at@WritesForRent.

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How The First Amendment Will Protect Us From Our Gun Crisis - Above the Law

Gorsuch uses other specious arguments. The most glaring fallacy occurs on a crucial point, when he rejects the claim that students felt pressure to join the prayers. Such social pressure was a key point in an earlier school-prayer case (Lee v. Weisman). According to the District Court, students at Bremerton had told their parents that they felt compelled to participate in the prayers and didnt want to separate themselves from the team. Gorsuch calls this hearsay, though its on record. (And anyone who has been part of a cohesive group as a teenager understands it instinctively.) Next, the coach was suspended for such prayers and also for his postgame religious talksdelivered to the captive audience Gorsuch claims the coach did not have. After the suspension, Kennedy returned to games and prayed alone on the field, as the school district suggested. None of his students joined him, but other people did. Clearly, the reason his students did not join him is that he had just been suspended for this, and the students didnt want to get in trouble or suspended from sports. But look what Gorsuch concludes from these facts: he uses the students lack of participation in the post-suspension prayers as evidence that they had not felt pressured to participate before the suspension. This is obviously faulty reasoning on probably the most important point of the ruling.

As an elected official, Im furious. I believe in the American experiment, in the hopes of religious diversity and e pluribus unum. At our best, we hold majority rule and minority rights in tension, just as we have tried to hold the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses in balance. But the last time teacher-led school prayer was legal (more than sixty years ago), our country was over 90 percent Christiannear 100 percent in many areas. That number has dropped to around 70 percent, and its significantly lower in some parts of the country. This ruling pretends to defend religious freedom for everyone in this increasingly diverse country, but in reality it will not encourage minority religious rights of free exercise. Ask any non-Christian in the Bible Belt how they felt during (Christian) team prayer in high school.

Moreover, e pluribus unum needs careful curation during moments of civil religion, in order to avoid government endorsement of religion or coercion of citizens. Gorsuch defends his ruling in part by reference to Town of Greece v. Galloway, a recent case that permitted prayer before town-council meetings. But the analogy between an orderly civic meeting of adults and an unregulated spontaneous prayer session with children confuses more than it clarifies. When the town that I serve puts on a civic event like Memorial Day, serious attention is paid to the invitations to religious leaders for invocations and benedictions. We can create conditions for salutary interactions among diverse people. But we cannot give the floor to anyone to pray however they want at a government-sponsored eventwhether a town parade or a high-school football game.

As a Catholic, Im disturbed. Even though the current Supreme Court has been labeled as a Catholic takeover, this particular ruling brings nothing good to Catholicism. Catholics already have the largest network of private schools in the country precisely in order to educate children separately in our values, beliefs, and rituals. Moreover, the form of public prayer defended by this ruling is only one specific type of religious expression: the spontaneous, charismatic, words-only prayer associated with Protestant Christians.

A Catholic coach at a public school might call a Hail Mary pass at the end of a game, but hes not going to lead the team in a rosary afterwards. A Greek Orthodox English teacher is not going to set up an icon in the corner of her classroom for prayer. Muslims and Jews will not feel emboldened to bring out prayer rugs or phylacteries to pray before students during school activities. Gorsuch does attempt one analogy to a Muslim teacher wearing a headscarf in the classroom, but he must know this is a category error. We have different kinds of legal analysis for religion in government monuments, symbols, funding, and prayer. It is forms of prayer at issue in this case, which is why Gorsuch makes no analogies to the actual ways that people besides Protestant Christians pray.

Finally, as a Bible-reading Christian, Im embarrassed. Im embarrassed for the Christian coach and the Christian justices. Catholic employees need Good Friday off for services, Muslims need private prayer breaks, and Jews need protection for Sabbath observance. But Biblical doctrine does not instruct Christians to pray in public places. Far from being a religious requirement, praying in public so that people can see you is literally the opposite of Jesus teachings. Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them, he warned. Do not be hypocrites who pray at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.... But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door (Matthew 6:16). This teaching is not obscure. Its in the Sermon on the Mount. In a tragic irony, we thus have a Free Exercise case in which someone fought for and won the right to do what their religion explicitly teaches them not to do. In addition to causing problems for parents, schools, law, and government, this ruling is Christian hypocrisy in its purest form.

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Fumbling the First Amendment - Commonweal