Pro-Life News

Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron called a newly passed Minnesota abortion bill that enshrines abortion rights into law "the worst kind of barbarism." The bill, titled the Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act, enshrines a constitutional right to "reproductive freedom," ensuring the right to abortion in Minnesota up to birth for any reason, as well as the right to contraception and sterilization. "Basically, it eliminates any kind of parental notifications so a 12-year-old child can get an abortion without even telling her parents about it," Barron said. Read more......

The Associated Press added an entry to its style guide directing journalists to put the term "crisis pregnancy center" in scare-quotes, and to use "anti-abortion center" instead, to convey that "the centers' general aim is to prevent abortions." The AP added this entry between Nov. 20 and Nov. 27, 2022. The guide describes the centers as "set up to divert or discourage women from having abortions" and warns writers against "potentially misleading terms" like "pregnancy resource centers or pregnancy counseling centers." Read more......

Iowa anti-abortion groups and some Republican lawmakers are starting the push for a "life at conception" bill that would ban all abortion in Iowa. Maggie DeWitte, who heads the Coalition of Pro-Life Leaders, announced the effort Monday at a Prayer for Life anti-abortion rally at the Statehouse. She said while they're waiting for a court decision on Iowa's "fetal heartbeat" law, anti-abortion groups believe it's the right time to start pushing for more restrictions. Read more......

Brushing aside calls to tweak one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee unveiled plans to funnel tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to crisis pregnancy centers as he declared the state had a "moral obligation" to support families. Lee, a Republican, said he wants to create a $100 million grant program for nonprofits commonly known as crisis pregnancy centers. If approved, Tennessee would become one of the top spending states on such organizations known for dissuading people from getting an abortion. Read more...  ...

Wisconsin pro-lifers face critical tests of their ability to shape abortion policy in the Badger State in two judicial elections on Feb. 21 and April 4 which could shift the balance of the state Supreme Court in favor of abortion. Currently split 4-3 in a pro-life direction, the retirement of Justice Patience Roggensack opens the way for the bench to flip pro-abortion ahead of a major case headed for the tribunal. Section 940.04 of Wisconsin Statutes, originally enacted in 1849, prohibits abortion except to prevent the death of the mother. Although Roe v. Wade made the law unenforceable, the June 2022 Dobbs decision allowed Wisconsin to restore its pre-1973 statute. Democrat Gov. Tony Evers...

State attorneys general from both political parties are in a tug-of-war over a federal lawsuit filed by pro-life groups looking to reverse the FDA's approval of a drug typically used in abortion procedures. Leading the 22 Republicans is Attorney General Lynn Fitch, R-Miss., who argues that the FDA "undermined the public interest" in its accessibility of the drug mifepristone, one of the drugs used to induce abortions in pregnancies up to 10 weeks. In the lawsuit, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists claim the FDA abused its regulatory power in 2000 by approving mifepristone. Read more......

Some key pro-life supporters said they oppose a bill in the Kentucky House of Representatives that would allow women who have an abortion to be prosecuted. First-term state Rep. Emily Callaway, R-Louisville, filed House Bill 300 in the General Assembly. It would allow prosecutors to file homicide charges against someone in cases where the alleged victim is an unborn child. Kentucky Right to Life issued a statement saying the proposed legislation goes too far and it has never called for laws to penalize women who receive abortions. Read more...  ...

After three months of waiting, the Ky. Supreme Court upheld an earlier appeals court ruling allowing Kentucky's trigger abortion ban (and a six-week ban) to be enforced and sent the case back to a circuit court where parties will argue over the constitutional merits of the law. The decision drew praise from pro-life groups and disappointment from those challenging the bans in court. Daniel Cameron, the state's Attorney General, called the opinion a "significant victory." The ACLU, ACLU of Kentucky and Planned Parenthood Federation of America —which jointly represent the two abortion providers who challenged the laws after Roe's reversal — said the fight for abortion access in...

The Utah House of Representatives passed some of the strongest pro-life legislation advanced since the reversal of Roe v. Wade. If passed by the state's Senate and signed into law, the measures effectively would shut down abortion clinics that only offer abortion and would also help victims of rape and incest. The first bill, sponsored by Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, a Republican, prohibits abortions outside of hospitals and bans clinics that only offer abortion. Further, the bill prohibits the licensing of abortion clinics after May 2, 2023, and makes it a criminal offense for out-of-state actors to prescribe abortion drugs to Utahns. <B><a...