Mississippi ready to challenge viability standard

Even as Gov. Phil Bryant signed Mississippi’s new pro-life law, he anticipated the legal battles to come.

“We’ll probably be sued in about half an hour,” Bryant said as he signed the measure protecting the lives of unborn children after 15-weeks gestation. He wasn’t far off. The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s last remaining abortion center, sued within hours, prompting U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to block the bill for 10 days so he could consider both sides’ arguments.

Should Reeves rule against the law, Bryant said Mississippi will appeal: “We will go to the 5th Circuit, which is traditionally more conservative on appeal than some of the others around the nation. And if we go all the way to the Supreme Court, we are willing to do that.”

In 2016, after the same federal judge blocked a Mississippi religious freedom law that protected businesses from lawsuits if they declined to participate in same-sex weddings, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling. Mississippi’s pro-life lawmakers are hoping for a repeat outcome.

“We are confident that the 5th Circuit is going to give this law a fair hearing,” Jameson Taylor, acting president of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, told me. “We believe that this legislation is constitutional [and] we’re disappointed that the lower court has disagreed. … We believe that ultimately we will win at the Supreme Court.”

The Jackson Women’s Health Organization argues the law is unconstitutional and violates federal court rulings that hold that states cannot restrict abortions “prior to viability”—before an unborn child can survive on its own outside the womb.

Taylor disagrees and is optimistic about the law’s chances.

“The Supreme Court has clearly moved away from the rigid decision in Roe v. Wade that says that states cannot regulate abortion pre-viability,” Taylor told me. “That’s old case law based on old science. We are happy that Mississippi is leading the way in passing legislation that is based on basically new scientific findings.”

While supporters like Taylor have high hopes, previous attempts by other states have failed. In 2013 and 2014, Arkansas and North Dakota attempted to pass laws protecting unborn children after 12- and six-weeks gestation, respectively. In 2014, federal judges ruled both laws unconstitutional.

But pro-life lawmakers refuse to give up.

Louisiana state Sen. John Milkovich in late February introduced a bill like Mississippi’s, seeking to protect the unborn after 15-weeks gestation.

“Let’s quit killing babies,” Milkovich said. “This is a curse on our state and nation.”

Louisiana Gov. John Bell Edwards, a pro-life Democrat, said should the bill pass, he likely would sign it.

Hospital urges assisted suicide for terminally ill man

Canadian Richard Foley does not want to die, but he claims the hospital caring for him is forcing him to choose between substandard care or medically assisted death. The Ontario man, who suffers from a terminal neurological disease, is suing the hospital, several government agencies, and Canada’s attorneys general.

Foley claims the home care provider selected and funded by the state several years ago gave him poor quality care and made mistakes that left him sick and injured. Since then, Foley has spent the last two years at the London Health Science Center’s Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario. He requested the ability to choose and manage his own home care team through “self-directed funding,” but officials denied his request and delayed subsequent appeals.

Foley’s case illustrates a warning euthanasia opponents have long issued: Once a government legalizes physician-assisted death, it begins to value life less and less, especially if ongoing care costs more than life-ending drugs. —A.S.

U.K. high court rejects appeal for toddler’s life

The U.K. Supreme Court rejected an appeal last week from the parents of toddler Alfie Evans, who suffers from an undiagnosed degenerative neurological condition.

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, currently caring for Alfie, wants to take the child off life support. Alfie’s parents, Tom Evans and Kate James, have fought for months to keep their comatose son on a ventilator, hoping he could eventually be transferred to a hospital in Rome or Munich for treatment.

They appealed to their country’s Supreme Court only after several appeals court judges and a high court judge ruled against them. Denied permission to have their case heard by the Supreme Court, Evans and James are now considering whether to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. —A.S.

Florida permanently funds pro-life pregnancy centers

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill last week permanently funding pro-life pregnancy centers in his state, including those run by religious organizations. Taxpayers have funded such centers since 2006, with lawmakers reexamining and renewing the $4 million bill every fiscal year. Florida Democrats and pro-abortion activists strongly opposed the permanent funding bill as it advanced through the state Senate until it passed in early February. Now state funding will be automatic, with 90 percent of the money allocated to pro-life centers. —A.S.