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Legal Wrap: Targeting Abortion Providers, and the Legacy of Dr. Tiller’s Murder

Five years after the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the threats to providers continue.

Five years after the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the threats to providers continue. abortioncarenetwork / YouTube

Legal Wrap is a weekly round-up of key legal reproductive rights and justice news.

This past weekend marked the five-year anniversary of the horrific murder of Dr. George Tiller while he attended church in Wichita, Kansas. I examine the link between targeted clinic and provider harassment by protesters and targeted restrictions of abortion providers by legislators here. Meanwhile, Carole Joffe has her reflections on Dr. Tiller’s murder here, and this piece by Irin Carmon on the women carrying on Tiller’s work in Wichita is a must-read.

Don’t look now, but anti-choice protesters are coming to a hospital near you.

Federal courts in both Alabama and Wisconsin held trials in lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of laws in their respective states that require abortion providers have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals or face criminal prosecution.

Attorneys for the State of Arkansas told a federal appeals court a state law that would effectively ban abortions at 12 weeks is completely constitutional because it’s not really a pre-viability abortion ban, just a really, really strict pre-viability regulation.

Elsewhere, attorneys for the State of North Dakota appealed a federal court ruling that permanently blocked a “heartbeat” ban, arguing the lower court got it wrong by not allowing a trial on the issue of whether or not fetal viability begins at conception.

A judge in Ohio ordered a man not to have any more children until he could prove he was current on nearly $100,000 in owed child support payments.

Anti-choice lawmakers are working extra hard in Oklahoma and Louisiana to jam through as many anti-abortion bills as possible. Teddy Wilson has the latest on both states here and here.

Emily Crockett reports on the latest on the judicial nomination of Michael Boggs.

Imani Gandy has this piece on Boko Haram and whether or not the terrorist group can face legal prosecution if it makes good on its threat to sell more than 200 abducted Nigerian girls into forced marriage.

Katherine Cross takes a look at the dangerous libertarian jurisprudence of Anthony Kennedy.

The Supreme Court announces it will take a look at a challenge from Alabama Democrats who claim Republicans gerrymandered legislative districts to intentionally pack Black Democrats into only a few voting districts.

There’s good news from Illinois, where lawmakers advanced a measure that would prohibit employers from discriminating against pregnant workers.

And lastly, new research shows that judges with daughters tend to vote in a “more feminist fashion.”