When the Supreme Court put the onus on states to set their own abortion policies with 2022’s Dobbs ruling, it unexpectedly subjected pro-life activists and their legislative allies to an onslaught of abortion-expansion proposals that made it into even red states’ laws, with a pro-life research group concluding last week that abortions are rising.
By passing on a case that sought to protect student expression that questions gender ideology from censorship in public schools, SCOTUS may similarly send free speech, gender-critical, religious freedom, conservative and pro-life advocates scrambling at the state and school district levels to protect nondisruptive speech at odds with progressive shibboleths.
The high court Tuesday turned away pleas from those advocates and Republican state attorneys general to hear and reverse the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against Liam Morrison, upholding his Massachusetts middle school’s ban on wearing shirts that read “there are only two genders” and, after his first punishment, “there are only censored genders.”
First Circuit Chief Judge David Barron – previously a Justice Department lawyer known for secretly advising the president who later nominated him that Barack Obama could legally kill Americans by drone strike – had portrayed the issue as a matter of judicial deference.
Hellbound and Down 