Texas Abortion Providers Preemptively Challenge Fetal Heartbeat Law
The providers say the bill is designed to force them to spend large amounts of time and money defending themselves in lawsuits across Texas, as anti-abortion “vigilantes” can sue them in any of the state’s 254 counties.
Anti-abortion demonstrators gather in the rotunda of the Texas State Capitol in Austin on March 30, 2021, as state senators debate abortion bills. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File)
AUSTIN, Texas (CN) A Texas fetal heartbeat law that has yet to take effect drew its first challenge Tuesday from a group of abortion providers who say it puts a bounty on them to be collected by anti-abortion crusaders.
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JEFFERSON CITY The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments in the state s Medicaid expansion case Tuesday, as the high court weighs whether to expand the low-income health care program for roughly 275,000 Missourians.
The court s seven judges heard arguments from attorneys representing three women suing to be included in the state s Medicaid program, the expansion of which was approved by a majority of Missouri voters last year. The state has maintained that since money for expansion was not included in the budget by the legislature this year, the women and others who would qualify are not eligible.
Attorney Chuck Hatfield, representing the three women appealing a lower court ruling, argued that since the legislature funded all of the services that qualify under Medicaid in this year s budget, his clients are eligible. He called a June circuit court ruling an unprecedented step of holding a provision of the Missouri Constitution the voter-approved Amendment
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Tue, 07/13/2021 - 16:35
REPUBLICANS PUSH VOTER SUPPRESSION BILLS IN LEGISLATURE: Senate Bills 326, 724 and 725 target absentee voting access and private election donations. The bills have similar provisions to other laws being introduced in legislatures of at least 48 states. Senate Bill 326 would shorten the deadline for counties to receive valid mail-in absentee ballots. The current law states that absentee ballots can be received up to 5 p.m. three days after an election, if the ballots are postmarked on or before the day of an election. Under SB 326, absentee ballots would have to be received by 5 p.m. on election day to be counted. “I think we got 14,500 ballots received and counted after election night,” Newton noted in an interview with WITN News. “That breeds suspicion in the mind of some North Carolinians. What could go wrong with 14,500 votes coming in after election night?”
Lawsuit challenges Texas law banning abortion after 6 weeks
By IRIS SAMUELS Associated Press July 13, 2021 3:23pm Text size Copy shortlink:
A coalition of abortion providers and advocates filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging a Texas law that would allow private citizens to sue anyone for helping a woman get an abortion.
In addition to asking the U.S. district court in Austin to overturn the law, the plaintiffs asked for an injunction that would stop it from taking effect in September.
The law would ban abortion in the nation s second-biggest state after six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women even know they are pregnant, and ask private citizens to enforce the ban by suing docto
Indecline activists hung a God Bless Abortions banner on a 65-foot-tall statue of Jesus in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, on the night of July 8, 2021. | Instagram/Indecline
A political activist art group hung a 45-foot banner reading âGod Bless Abortionsâ on the 65-foot tall Christ of the Ozarks statue that âstands as a symbol of hopeâ in northwest Arkansas on Thursday night.
Members of the activist art collective called Indecline disguised themselves as construction workers to sneak onto the property and used pulleys and climbing gear to hang the banner on the Christ of the Ozarks statue in Eureka Springs that was erected in 1966.Â