The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared inclined to revive an appeal of lower-court rulings that struck down a Kentucky antiabortion law as unconstitutional.

The legal question was procedural: Whether Kentucky’s Republican attorney general has the right to pursue additional litigation in defense of the statute, which outlaws most second-trimester abortions, following a loss before a federal circuit court that the Democratic governor’s administration declined to appeal further.

Most justices appeared to think the answer was yes.

It would be odd if appellate rules left nobody “there to defend Kentucky’s law, even though there are significant parts of Kentucky’s government that still want its law defended,” Justice Elena Kagan said.

…

A decision in the case, Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, is expected by June.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-considers-reviving-appeal-of-kentucky-abortion-law-11634065600?
___________________________________________________________

2. New York’s Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate Needs Religious Exemption, Judge Rules, Decision ends weeks of living in limbo for thousands of New York healthcare workers who had refused shots; state’s governor to fight ruling, By Deanna Paul, The Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2021, 4:11 PM

A federal judge extended an order requiring New York state to allow religious exemptions from its Covid-19 vaccination mandate for healthcare workers, in a ruling that could help shape the legal landscape around government-required shots.

In August, the New York State Department of Health said hospital and nursing-home workers would have to be vaccinated against Covid-19 within 30 days. Although there were provisions for medical exemptions, there were none based on religious beliefs, and when the mandate took effect last month, thousands of healthcare workers who refused vaccinations lost their jobs.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David Hurd in Utica, N.Y., ruled that the mandate conflicted with individuals’ federally-protected right to seek religious accommodation from their employers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-vaccine-mandate-needs-religious-exemption-judge-rules-11634069470?
___________________________________________________________

3. The Abortion Backup Plan No One Is Talking About, Even in states with the strictest abortion laws, pregnant people have a safe, inexpensive option to terminate their pregnancies. But few know about it., By Olga Khazan, The Atlantic, October 12, 2021, 7:00 AM, Opinion

So many states have restricted access to abortion so severely that people in large swaths of the country feel they have no options if they want to terminate a pregnancy. But technically, those who want an abortion still have options. It’s just that few have heard of them.

Pregnant people in Texas, or in any other U.S. state, can visit an array of websites that will mail them two pills—mifepristone and misoprostol—that will induce a miscarriage when used in the first trimester of pregnancy and possibly even later.

…

The struggle for abortion rights has been about proving that restrictions are an “undue burden” for women—a burden that mail-order abortions arguably lessen. “The strategy of the lawyers and the providers and everybody who’s fighting for our rights … is ‘Oh my God, look what happened. In Texas, there are no options anymore,’” Coeytaux says. “If you come along and say, ‘Maybe your problems of access have just been solved, because you don’t have to travel, you don’t have to pay that much,’ that undermines the Oh my God, this is really terrible.”

…

Sites like Aid Access are quickly becoming the sworn enemies of abortion opponents. “At a minimum, the FDA should warn women, as it has in the past, that it is not safe to use imported drugs bought off the internet that have not undergone agency scrutiny and evaluation as to purity, safety, and efficacy,” Randy O’Bannon, the director of research at National Right to Life, told me via email. “And those entities illegally importing and selling those unauthorized drugs should be prosecuted for those violations and they should certainly be held criminally and financially responsible for any injuries associated with their products.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/10/plan-c-secret-option-mail-order-abortion/620324/
___________________________________________________________

4. Cordileone prayer update: 10,688 roses and counting for Nancy Pelosi, By Christine Rousselle, Catholic News Agency, October 12, 2021, 11:50 AM

More than 10,000 people have committed to pray the rosary and to fast on Fridays for the ideological conversion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on the subject of abortion, the Benedict XVI Institute announced Tuesday.

“As of Saturday, October 9, we have 10,688 Catholics who have committed to praying one rosary each week and fasting on Fridays through the end of October,” said Maggie Gallagher, executive director of the Benedict XVI Institute. The institute is administering the “Rose and Rosary for Nancy” campaign with the support of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Pelosi’s bishop in San Francisco.

“We hope the Blessed Mother will touch her maternal heart, as the Archbishop has put it so beautifully, and extend her compassion and respect for the equal dignity of all people to children in the womb,” said Gallagher.

The announcement coincides with the launch of a new advertisement featuring Cordileone.

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/249263/cordileone-prayer-update-10688-roses-and-counting-for-nancy-pelosi
___________________________________________________________

5. USCCB pro-life chairman urges Biden to act like the ‘devout Catholic’ he says he is, By Katie Yoder, Catholic News Agency, October 12, 2021, 10:53 AM

The U.S. Catholic bishops’ pro-life chairman is expressing disappointment with President Biden as his administration reverses a Trump-era rule that restricted funding over abortion.

“It’s really sad,” Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, who heads the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities, told EWTN News Nightly on Oct. 8. The Biden administration, he added, is “in the control of abortion extremists.”

…

“He likes to call himself a devout Catholic. I would urge him to begin to act like one, especially on the life issues,” Archbishop Joseph Naumann said. “And to let his faith really inform his conscience and the decisions that he’s making, not the platform of his party.”

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/249260/usccb-pro-life-chairman-urges-biden-to-act-like-the-devout-catholic-he-says-he-is
___________________________________________________________