Keeping brain-dead pregnant women on life support raises ethical issues that go beyond abortion politics

  Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old woman from Georgia who had been declared brain-dead in February 2025, spent 16 weeks on life support while doctors worked to keep her body functioning well enough to support her developing fetus. On June 13, 2025, her premature baby, named Chance, was born via cesarean section at 25 weeks.

  Smith was nine weeks pregnant when she suffered multiple blood clots in her brain. Her story gained public attention when her mother criticized doctors’ decision to keep her on a ventilator without the family’s consent. Smith’s mother has said that doctors told the family the decision was made to align with Georgia’s LIFE Act, which bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and bolsters the legal standing of fetal personhood. A statement released by the hospital also cites Georgia’s abortion law.

3 years after abortion rights were overturned, contraception access is at risk

  On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminated a nearly 50-year constitutional right to abortion and returned the authority to regulate abortion to the states.

  The Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, has vastly reshaped the national abortion landscape. Three years on, many states have severely restricted access to abortion care. But the decision has also had a less well-recognized outcome: It is increasingly jeopardizing access to contraception.

Kamala Harris’ and Donald Trump’s records on abortion policy couldn’t be more different – here’s what actions they both have taken while in office

  Abortion is a critical, if not the most important, issue for many voters – especially women, according to polls – ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

  Since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee in August 2024, she has been vocal about her support for abortion rights. Specifically, she supports Congress passing a federal law that would protect abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court in 2022 overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which recognized a constitutional right to abortion.

Alabama group continues fight to help women obtain reproductive care

  Jenice Fountain could not believe what she was hearing.

  Was that Steve Marshall, the attorney general of Alabama, on talk radio, threatening to go after her tiny organization, which is dedicated to supporting pregnant Alabamians seeking legal abortion care?

Arizona’s now-repealed abortion ban serves as a cautionary tale for reproductive health care across the US

  When the Arizona Supreme Court ruled on April 9, 2024, that the state’s Civil War-era law banning nearly all abortions was enforceable, it brought into stark reality the potential impacts of leaving reproductive rights up to the states to regulate and the related consequences for women’s health.

  The ruling, set to go into effect in late June 2024, will only remain active for a few months because Arizona lawmakers repealed the law on April 30. Starting in the fall, a previous state law banning abortion after 15 weeks will be reinstated.

Tommy Tuberville is losing

  Let’s remember the stakes of Tommy Tuberville’s months-long blockade of military promotions.

  The Pentagon in February announced a new policy to help service members get abortion services, months after the U.S. Supreme Court gave states like Alabama the green light to impose draconian restrictions on the procedure.

  The policy gives members of the armed forces up to 21 days’ leave for abortion or fertility treatments. It reimburses them for travel expenses. And it prevents a health care provider from telling a commander about the nature of the person’s treatment.

White men have controlled women’s reproductive rights throughout American history – the post-Dobbs era is no different

  More than a year after the Supreme Court ended federal protection for abortion rights in the United States, disagreements over abortion bans continue to reverberate around the country. Candidates sparred over the idea of a federal abortion ban during the Aug. 23, 2023 Republican presidential debate. And abortion is likely to figure prominently in the November 2023 contest for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

  When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, removing women’s federal constitutional right to get abortions and giving states the power to pass laws about the legality of the procedure, the 6-3 vote was by a four white men, one Black man, and a white woman majority.

A seismic change has taken place at the Supreme Court – but it’s not clear if the shift is about principle or party

  In the summer of 2022, the U.S. witnessed a dramatic change in how the majority of Supreme Court justices understand the Constitution.

  At the end of a single term, the court rejected the long-standing constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights, and ruled that religion can have a bigger role in public institutions.

  These outcomes reflect a seismic shift in U.S. law and policy, but scholars of the court dispute what kind of change it was, exactly – a principled or partisan one. As a close observer of constitutional politics, I believe this is an important debate with deep consequences for the perceived legitimacy of the court.

FTC lawsuit spotlights a major privacy risk: From call records to sensors, your phone reveals more about you than you think

  The Federal Trade Commission filed suit against Kochava Inc. on Aug. 29, 2022, accusing the data broker of selling geolocation data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices. Consumers are often unaware that their location data is being sold and that their past movements can be tracked, according to the commission.

  The FTC’s suit specified that Kochava’s data can be used to track consumers to sensitive locations, including “to identify which consumers’ mobile devices visited reproductive health clinics.”

New restrictions on abortion care will have psychological harms – here’s what research shows will happen in post-Roe America

  “I’m struggling a bit this morning,” a client of mine stated at the start of our session the morning of June 24, 2022. “I just heard on the news about the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. There was so much for me to process I had to turn it off.”

  While this client did not have personal experience with elective abortion, she had a complicated reproductive history that included a recent pregnancy in which she was unsure if the baby would survive. In our session that day, she recognized how privileged she was to have had a medical team that communicated with her about all available options and potential outcomes for her and the baby. Most importantly, she acknowledged the significance of having a say in the decisions about her reproductive care.

The wrongness of letting government tell us to ‘shut up – or else’

  There may be no worse assault on our freedom of speech than a law that would permit the government to tell us to “shut up” when it comes to discussion and debate on a major social issue of our time – and to punish us if we don’t.

  Freedom of speech under the First Amendment is rooted in the concept of a “marketplace of ideas,” where information and robust, uninhibited exchanges are protected to ensure all can speak and be heard.

What the Bible actually says about abortion may surprise you

  In the days since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had established the constitutional right to an abortion, some Christians have cited the Bible to argue why this decision should either be celebrated or lamented. But here’s the problem: This 2,000-year-old text says nothing about abortion.

  As a university professor of biblical studies, I am familiar with faith-based arguments Christians use to back up views of abortion, whether for or against. Many people seem to assume the Bible discusses the topic head-on, which is not the case.

What really drives anti-abortion beliefs? Research suggests it’s a matter of sexual strategies

  Many people have strong opinions about abortion – especially in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, revoking a constitutional right previously held by more than 165 million Americans.

  But what really drives people’s abortion attitudes?

  It’s common to hear religious, political, and other ideologically driven explanations – for example, about the sanctity of life. If such beliefs were really driving anti-abortion attitudes, though, then people who oppose abortion might not support the death penalty (many do), and they would support social safety net measures that could save newborns’ lives (many don’t).

US abortion restrictions are unlikely to influence international trends, which are largely becoming more liberal

  The Supreme Court’s June 24, 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade is already having profound effects across the United States from Florida to Wisconsin. And the ruling also bucks a clear worldwide trend. In countries from Iceland to Zambia, abortion restrictions have been lifted over the last two decades, not tightened.

  Today, only 24 countries out of 195 prohibit abortion, representing just 5% of women of reproductive age globally. Twice that many countries have made it easier to legally get an abortion in the past 20 years.

There is no one ‘religious view’ on abortion: A scholar of religion, gender and sexuality explains

  The Catholic Church’s official line on abortion, and even on any artificial birth control, is well known: Don’t do it.

  Surveys of how American Catholics live their lives, though, tell a different story.

  The vast majority of Catholic women have used contraceptives despite the church’s ban. Fifty-six percent of U.S. Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, whether or not they believe they would ever seek one. One in four Americans who have had abortions are Catholic, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for reproductive health.

Online data could be used against people seeking abortions if Roe v. Wade falls

  When the draft of a Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to the press, many of us who have been studying privacy for vulnerable individuals came to a troubling realization: The marginalized and vulnerable populations whose online risks have been the subject of our attention are likely to grow exponentially. These groups are poised to encompass all women of child-bearing age, regardless of how secure and how privileged they may have imagined themselves to be.

Yes, it’s easier to get birth control than it was in the 1970s – but women still need abortion care

  A historic ruling on abortion is likely to emerge from the U.S. Supreme Court this year as justices consider whether Mississippi can, in fact, impose a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

  The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, challenges the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that protects women’s right to abortion. Meanwhile, Texas enacted its own restrictive abortion law in September – and other states are working to follow suit.

The Supreme Court has overturned precedent dozens of times in the past 60 years, including when it struck down legal segregation

  It is a central principle of law: Courts are supposed to follow earlier decisions – precedent – to resolve current disputes. But it’s inevitable that sometimes, the precedent has to go, and a court has to overrule another court or even its own decision from an earlier case.

  In its upcoming term, the U.S. Supreme Court faces the question of whether to overrule itself on abortion rights. Recent laws in Texas and Mississippi restrict the right of women to terminate pregnancies in ways that appear to challenge the long-standing precedent of the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which allowed women to have abortions in most circumstances.

60 years after JFK, Biden as second Catholic president offers a refresh in church’s political role

  Running to become the first Catholic president of the United States in 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy told an audience of wary Protestant ministers that “if the time should come … when my office would require me to violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office.”

  Sixty years later, Joe Biden has become the second Roman Catholic to win the White House, and some prominent Catholics and bishops now appear to believe that the only way a Catholic should hold office is if putting conscience before what the law says about culture war issues like abortion. Five decades of abortion politics have taken a toll.

Trump’s ideological judges have led to politicized courts

  President Donald Trump has made clear that he values personal loyalty to himself above all other traits in those around him, both when it comes to his political aides and who he calls “his” judges. He has personally attacked judges who rule against his administration’s interests while promising that those he nominates will carry out his administration’s policy goals. Those goals chiefly include eliminating the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—as he is currently urging the U.S. Supreme Court to do in a lawsuit—and dismantling Roe v. Wade.