New Year Brings New State Legislation and Litigation on Abortion

As the regular legislative sessions convene throughout the country, many states are seeing local legislators introduce bills for and against abortion. In many other states, important cases continue to make their way through state courts.

American Pro-Lifers need to be informed and vigilant as the future of preborn children now rests in the hands of local and state officials.

State Legislative Highlights

In Alaska, a bill proposed in the Senate would call for an amendment to the state constitution to overrule the state highest court’s ruling that abortion is guaranteed by the state constitution. Alaska’s session starts on January 17th.

In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin has proposed a 15 week abortion ban that will be debated in a state legislature that is divided as Republicans control the State Assembly and Democrats control the Senate. Virginia’s legislature convenes today.

In Illinois the abortion lobby got an early start, passing a law that will expand the state’s already broad promotion of the killing of the preborn. This new bill, will protect Illinois doctors who travel out of state to kill children, and out of state residents who travel to Illinois to kill preborn babies. The legislation passed by a 70-39 in the House and 40-16 in the Senate.

The bill is now on the desk of newly reelected Illinois Governor Pritzker, who used his inaugural address to propose a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the killing of preborn children as a fundamental right.

In neighboring Indiana, a pro-abortion state senator has introduced a bill legalizing abortion until the 20th week with loopholes after that point that make it a practical abortion on demand until birth law. In August of 2022, the Governor of Indiana signed a limited ban on abortion which a local judge blocked. The law, and the question of whether the Indiana constitution includes a “right” to kill children before birth, is now before the Indiana Supreme Court awaiting a ruling. The court is scheduled to begin hearing oral arguments on January 19th.

Awaiting Supreme Court Rulings

Indiana is not the only state where the abortion industry has tied up state legislation in legal battles. Last week, the South Carolina Supreme Court created a state right to abortion under the state’s privacy clause, while the Idaho Supreme Court declared there was no state constitutional right to abortion.

In Ohio, Attorney General Dave Yost argued on Tuesday that a district court that single-handedly created a state “right” to killing babies before birth erred, and asked the Ohio Supreme Court to reinstate Ohio’s heartbeat abortion ban. The Ohio Attorney General pointed out in his brief that the abortion lobby has been cherry picking lower courts to unilaterally block pro-life legislation and “drag out lower-court proceedings, ensuring their orders remain in effect – and that state laws with which they disagree remain unenforceable – for as long as possible.”

Please stay tuned to American ProLifer as we cover critical state legislation of abortion being introduced and litigated throughout the nation.