Mary Ziegler

Two more important things: 1) this suit is meant to get a federal court to finally interpret the Comstock Act as a ban/ force a response from SCOTUS and Trump; 2) it reinforces arguments for fetal personhood (note that is a class action on behalf of all "fathers of unborn children")

Courts in NY or CA were never going to enter antiabortion judgments. The goal? Win in federal court and force compliance. As far as that goes, there are strategic advantages to a civil wrongful death suit brought by a private citizen. Don't sleep on what this means for abortion-protective states.

We were long promised that cross-border wars over abortion would center on wrongful death suits brought by men. This may be the start, in a suit filed by Jonathan Mitchell. Why is this a big deal?

It may feel like it's not because the TX state suit and Louisiana prosecution didn't go anywhere. /1

Medina on its own will likely harder for plaintiffs to enforce other civil rights in federal court. And as far as reproductive health is concerned, this case could be part of a one-two punch if Trump's Big Beautiful Bill passes.

Skrmetti caps off decades of movement work to rethink sex discrimination jurisprudence across the board. The goal was to ensure law could regulate based on biological difference, broadly defined --as one ADF attorney explained, to show that “one cannot deny the reality of biological sex.”

Look at how much work the Court's abortion cases do here. The majority cites Dobbs to say that regulating a medical condition/procedure isn't sex discrimination, and another abortion case, Gonzales v. Carhart, to suggest that legislatures deserve discretion when there is scientific uncertainty.

North Texas man accused of slipping abortion drug in pregnant girlfriend’s drink A U.S. Department of Justice employee faces charges including capital murder after investigators say he forced an abortion by sneaking medication into a woman’s coffee.

Striking story: a man accused of putting abortion pills into his girlfriend's drink without her consent is being charged not with criminal abortion or reproductive coercion but with capital murder in Texas. A test for personhood politics in the state.

www.star-telegram.com/news/local/c...

The strategy in this case, involving what movement members call a guardian for the unborn, has been a defining strategy for fetal personhood since the 1960s. There are more federal personhood cases in the pipeline like this one in MN: www.mprnews.org/story/2024/1...

Good point

The thrust: hospitals didn't know what to do because of Biden. The Trump Admin vows to enforce the law to prevent serious harm to "the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child."
No guidance about how hospitals should, but a clear nod to the idea that the unborn child counts as a patient too.

Today, the Trump Admin issued this on EMTALA. What does it mean?
www.cms.gov/newsroom/pre...

The study designed to give Trump a chance to revisit the rules governing mifepristone wasn't isolated. Here's the sequel; we'll see if it prompts HHS to end telehealth access. lozierinstitute.org/the-origins-...

Do you have the PDF? When I try the links from the MO courts? I get this error message from the link

Anyone have a copy of the MO Supreme Court order from yesterday, and Judge Zhang's February ruling? The MO courts page seems to be down?

Huge news. This bill was heralded as a model for other states. My guess is that it was taken down by its language blocking state courts from ruling on its constitutionality. Don't be surprised if many of these proposals are back, in TX and elsewhere, minus that idea.

Bill With Billions in Health Program Cuts Passes House - KFF Health News The House narrowly passed a budget reconciliation bill, including billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy along with billions of dollars in cuts to health program spending. But the Senate is e...

worth the wait - this week's #WTHealth podcast! With @alicemiranda.bsky.social, @annaedney.bsky.social, and @sarahkarlin-smith.bsky.social, plus @maryrziegler.bsky.social on her new personhood book!
kffhealthnews.org/news/podcast...

The GA AG claims that Adriana Smith doesn't have to be kept on life support because taking her off wouldn't qualify as a "direct abortion" and violate the state's ban. But that's wrong because GA's law is a *fetal personhood* law. Want to learn more? I have a book!

www.amazon.com/Personhood-N...

Case of brain-dead pregnant woman kept on life support in Georgia raises tricky questions The case of a pregnant woman in Georgia who was declared brain dead and has been on life support for three months has given rise to complicated questions about abortion law and whether a fetus is a pe...

AP's reporting on GA may confuse readers. It says pro-lifers are divided on personhood bills. That's true of bills authorizing punishment of women but NOT of the idea of personhood, which is what is driving events in Georgia. This isn't an outlier.
apnews.com/article/preg...

To be clear, it’s not that there are five votes to *uphold* Trump’s patently unlawful and unconstitutional limits on birthright citizenship; it’s that there seem to be five votes to hold that district courts can grant relief only to plaintiffs—so the policy would go into effect against all others.

"Investigation" into mifepristone has been a defining policy. At first, this was a way to buy time, given that the abortion issue hurts Republicans. Now it looks like political cover. Trump's past talk of state's rights will be portrayed as sincere; he will say that new data have changed his mind.

'Personhood' argues fetal rights are the next frontier of the anti-abortion movement : NPR's Book of the Day Mary Ziegler is a law professor at UC Davis and a leading scholar on the abortion debate. In her new book Personhood, she argues that the anti-abortion movement's ultimate goal is fetal personhood, wh...

Wow--honored that @npr picked Personhood as the book of the day.

www.npr.org/2025/05/08/1...

You can pick up a copy here: www.amazon.com/Personhood-N...

Column | Three years after Dobbs leak, abortion no longer dominates politics In Trump 2.0, reproductive rights is not the most central issue galvanizing voters, leaving Democrats searching for a winning message.

Trump has seen stories like this: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202.... Why does abortion seem like less of an issue? Because the status quo hasn't changed. Abortion will become a major electoral issue the minute something major happens. Trump is trying to manage that without losing abortion foes.

Column | Three years after Dobbs leak, abortion no longer dominates politics In Trump 2.0, reproductive rights is not the most central issue galvanizing voters, leaving Democrats searching for a winning message.

Want to make sense of the Trump filing yesterday? Remember it says nothing about FDA approval of mifepristone or whether the Comstock Act is an abortion ban. Trump is giving himself room to do whatever he wants on mifepristone on his own timeline. And one more thing:

The case will continue. Questions about Comstock could still end up at SCOTUS. But Trump doesn't seem to be in a hurry. The preference, I think, is for Trump to continue reshaping the courts, and for the courts to continue limiting access to abortion, all without Trump taking the blame.

It's true that venue was a stretch--why do harms alleged to have occurred in KS or MO need to be litigated in ...Amarillo? So the arguments here make sense. It's just striking that the Trump Administration is making them.

Everyone was curious what Trump would do. He hasn't made moves to change mifepristone access. He hasn't invoked Comstock. Would this lawsuit change that? Not yet. The admin invites the same parties to file elsewhere (while suggesting they don't have standing). It's kicking the can down the road.

The case started when the AGs of MO, KS, and ID tried to amend a complaint in the mifepristone case that SCOTUS killed last year on standing grounds. The new suit centers on the Comstock Act, a 19th c obscenity law claimed to be a ban on mailing/receiving abortion-related drugs or paraphernalia.

Today, in a huge case on mifepristone, the Trump Administration filed a brief arguing that the state plaintiffs couldn't satisfy venue requirements in Amarillo & don't have standing.

litigationtracker.law.georgetown.edu/wp-content/u...

What does it mean?

Thanks to @velshimsnbc.bsky.social for the chance to talk about fetal personhood and my new book, Personhood.

Here's a link to the New Yorker review: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

You can pick up a copy here or at your bookstore:
www.amazon.com/Personhood-N...

Looking forward to joining @velshi.com on @velshimsnbc.bsky.social to talk about Personhood. Hope you can listen!