Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 25, 2024 / 15:50 pm
Here is a roundup of the latest pro-life and abortion-related news in the U.S. and abroad:
Beyoncé to appear at Kamala Harris rally to mobilize voters around abortion
Beyoncé is set to join Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Houston that will focus on abortion, according to the Washington Post.
The Harris campaign has described Texas as “ground zero of the nation’s extreme abortion bans.” The Friday rally will be “centered on abortion rights,” the Post reported.
Beyoncé, a Texas native, previously performed at a rally for Hillary Clinton in 2016, just days before the Democratic presidential candidate lost the election to Donald Trump.
Harris has used Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” as a walkout song throughout her campaign.
Ohio judge tosses heartbeat ban, citing voter-approved abortion ‘rights’ amendment
A Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge ruled on Thursday that Ohio’s heartbeat law is “unconstitutional” in light of a state constitutional amendment voters passed overwhelmingly in November of last year that enshrined abortion as a constitutional right.
First passed in 2019, the state’s heartbeat law banned abortion procedures if a fetal heartbeat had been detected. The law did not go into effect until after the Dobbs decision in 2022 but was temporarily blocked by Judge Christian Jenkins within three months.
“Ohio voters have spoken,” Jenkins wrote in the decision this week in which he granted a permanent injunction. “The Ohio Constitution now unequivocally protects the right to an abortion.”
Students for Life group forced to stop gathering on campus in San Antonio
A group of pro-life high schoolers in San Antonio was forced to quit meeting on campus after administration officials alleged the club “was preventing education from moving forward” and “creating an uproar in the school,” according to a local KENS5 news report.
Diego Salinas, founder of the Students for Life of America chapter at Sonia Sotomayor High School, told KENS5 that the group had met only one time before being shut down by the administration.
Salinas had prepared to launch the club this fall, starting an Instagram account for the group with the handle “Sotomayer Students for Life,” which gained attention from the student body. Citing district policy, the administration forced Salinas to delete the account, which had featured the school’s name.
The weekend after the group’s first meeting, the pro-life students faced backlash and were ultimately instructed by school officials to cease meeting.
Salinas claimed that despite taking every necessary step outlined by the school to start the group and complying readily with the administration, Students for Life had been “singled out” for its beliefs, as other groups had been permitted to meet and use the school’s name.
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“Sotomayor HS has fully complied with the district’s policy regarding student expression and use of school facilities for non-school business in providing a limited open forum,” the school district wrote in a statement, adding: “The matter is currently under consideration by school administration.”
Irish Parliament votes to accept report on ‘assisted dying’
The lower house and principal chamber of Ireland’s legislative assembly voted 76 to 53 to endorse a report from its Committee on Assisted Dying.
While the vote does not imply any legislative change, the Final Report of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying contains 38 recommendations that largely favor legislative permissions for the practice.
Among these recommendations, the committee recommends the government allow medically assisted death in limited circumstances, such as those with six months to live, or for patients suffering from neurodegenerative conditions, up to a year.
Notably, the report also recommends the government prosecute those found to have coerced someone into assisted suicide and for doctors to receive training that would help them identify instances of such an offense.
Sinn Féin party health spokesman and member of the Assisted Dying Committee David Cullinane told the Irish Times that it would “fall on the next government to decide on what to do next” regarding policy change.
“It will be a challenge to go from a committee report into a legal framework that is robust and can ensure that all of the safeguards in relation to coercion, assisted decision-making, and all of those issues,” he added.
