JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — GOP infighting and a record-breaking, 50-hour Democratic filibuster on Friday killed a Republican push to make amending Missouri’s constitution harder, an effort in part aimed at thwarting an upcoming ballot measure on abortion-rights. The GOP-led Senate adjourned Friday morning — nearly eight hours before the 6 p.m. deadline for lawmakers to … Read more
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Advocates on Friday turned in more than twice the needed number of signatures to put a proposal to legalize abortion on the Missouri ballot this year. The campaign said it turned in more than 380,000 voter signatures — more than double the minimum 171,000 needed to qualify for the ballot. “Our … Read more
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood filed a legal challenge on Friday to some of Ohio’s abortion laws, now that Ohio voters have enshrined voting rights in the state’s constitution. The lawsuit filed on behalf of abortion clinics says that since Ohioans voted overwhelmingly to protect such rights in an … Read more
ZAGREB, Croatia — With vigils outside clinics, marches drawing thousands and groups of men kneeling to pray in public squares, religious and neo-conservative groups have been ramping up pressure to ban abortions in staunchly Catholic Croatia. The fierce debate has fueled divisions in the European Union nation of about 3.9 million people where abortion remains … Read more
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two families of transgender minors filed a constitutional challenge on Tuesday to an Ohio law that severely limits gender-affirming health care for youth under 18. The litigation, brought in Franklin County Common Pleas Court by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Ohio and the global law firm Goodwin, alleges the law … Read more
BATON ROUGE, La. — A bill that ultimately would have let voters decide whether abortions should be legal in Louisiana, a state with a near-total ban, failed after a Republican-controlled committee rejected it Monday. The legislation proposed an amendment to Louisiana’s constitution that would enshrine reproductive rights for women, including allowing contraceptives such as birth … Read more
TOPEKA, Kan. — A Kansas judge ruled Monday that the state isn’t violating transgender residents’ rights under the state constitution by refusing to change their driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identities. District Judge Teresa Watson kept in place indefinitely an order she first issued in July 2023 to prevent the Kansas Department of Revenue … Read more
PARIS — French lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill to enshrine abortion rights in France’s constitution, making it the only country to explicitly guarantee a woman’s right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy. The historic move was proposed by President Emmanuel Macron as a way to prevent the kind of rollback of abortion rights seen … Read more
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Republican lawmakers on Thursday voted to make it harder to change the Missouri Constitution amid a campaign to restore abortion rights through a voter-backed constitutional amendment. Currently, Missouri constitutional changes are enacted if approved by a majority of votes statewide. State senators voted 22-9 along party lines to also require a … Read more
TOPEKA, Kan. — The recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are legally protected children is highlighting how support for the idea that a fetus should have the same rights as a person underpins far less dramatic laws and proposals from abortion foes across the U.S. Lawmakers in at least six states have proposed … Read more
