The Texas Heartbeat Act is an extraordinary departure from legal norms. The law empowers “any person,” other than a government official, to sue everyone involved in performing an abortion after the detection of fetal “cardiac activity.”
Ellen K. Boegel
Ellen K. Boegel is America’s contributing editor for legal affairs.
Posted inNews Analysis, Politics & Society
Joe Biden’s first 100 days: Religious freedom, L.G.B.T. rights and Covid-19 mandates
If Joe Biden wants his presidency to have a lasting impact on religious freedom, he and his fellow Democrats must craft legislation acceptable to Republican senators.
Posted inExplainer, Politics & Society
Explainer: Can President Trump designate ‘antifa’ as a terrorist group?
Branding “antifa” (short for “antifascist”) or any domestic association as a terror group is problematic, primarily because the United States “does not officially designate domestic terrorist organizations.”
Posted inNews Analysis, Politics & Society
How we got here: The saga of the Little Sisters of the Poor and the birth control mandate
Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion is a decisive win for religious rights advocates, but it may not be the last chapter in this story.
Posted inColumns, Politics & Society
As pressure builds to reopen churches, can local governments keep them closed?
The Trump administration is permitting state and local governments to exert their traditional power to draft and enforce health and safety regulations. This has led to a variety of responses across the country and even within the same state.
Posted inExplainer, Faith
Is all religious speech protected by law? The answer is complicated.
Regardless of federal funding rules, proselytizers, practitioners and preachers should be aware of state tort laws that impose liability for harmful speech. Whether religious speech is immune from defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims depends on the context and content of the speech.
Posted inFaith, News Analysis
Can Catholic school hair grooming standards be discriminatory?
Disputes regarding the enforcement of hair grooming standards at religious schools require application of fundamental church-and-state principles that are unique to the United States.
Posted inExplainer, Politics & Society
Explainer: Who are the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, the Catholics convicted of protesting nuclear weapons?
The obvious religious motivation of the Plowshares activists did not insulate them from criminal prosecution. The First Amendment prohibits the government from applying different rules to religious believers, but the Plowshares defendants were treated the same as any other intruder on government property.
Posted inExplainer, Politics & Society
What parents (and everyone else) should know about education laws
Despite the alphabet soup of acronyms used to describe educational programs and the bureaucratic red tape involved in obtaining benefits, learning is a singular experience and small improvements can have profound impacts.
Posted inExplainer, Politics & Society
Why a repeal of the 2nd Amendment would not be enough to stop gun violence
Unlike other nations that prohibit or narrowly restrict ownership of high-body-count weaponry and ammunition, the United States is hindered in establishing effective gun control by federal and state constitutional roadblocks. Understanding these roadblocks is essential to devising a route around them.