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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 23, … […]

Jackson, Miss., Mar 9, 2018 / 03:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Mississippi legislature has passed one of the strongest restrictions on abortion in the U.S., barring most abortions 15 weeks into pregnancy.

“As I have repeatedly said, I want Mississippi to be the safest place in America for an unborn child,” Gov. Phil Bryant said on Twitter March 6. “House Bill 1510 will help us achieve that goal.”

The Senate voted to pass the bill by a 35-14 vote.

The bill had been modified to remove criminal penalties involving jail time. Physicians who violate the law will lose their state medical licenses and receive a civil penalty of up to $500, National Public Radio reports.

The amended bill passed the Republican-controlled House by a vote of 75-34. An earlier version of the bill passed the House by a Feb. 2 vote of 79-31, with some Democratic support.

In a Feb. 8 message, Bishops Joseph Kopacz of Jackson and Louis Kihneman of Biloxi said the state’s legislature is “to be commended for voting to protect unborn human life.”

State records indicate about 200 abortions a year are performed on women 15 to 20 weeks pregnant, backers of the bill have said. Their bill allows exceptions for when a woman’s life is in danger or when an unborn child has a severe abnormality.

State Rep. Becky Currie, the bill’s sponsor, said the bill is appropriate because most women discover they are pregnant months before the pregnancy reaches 15 weeks.

The passage of the bill drew other praise.

“Mississippians are committed to protecting the lives of unborn children, and this law will be a major step in accomplishing that goal,” Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves said, according to the Clarion Ledger. “I am committed to making Mississippi the safest place in America for an unborn child.”

Both Mississippi and North Carolina currently bar abortion at 20 weeks into pregnancy, measured from a woman’s last menstrual period. Other states start from a date two weeks later.

The state’s only abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, does not perform abortions as late as 20 weeks and so it did not challenge the existing law, clinic owner Diane Derzis told the Associated Press. The clinic does perform abortions three weeks past the legislation’s ban limit. If the bill becomes law, it will refer women seeking these abortions to out-of-state clinics.

Derzis told the Clarion Ledger she was not surprised by the Senate vote, adding that Bryant “has never seen an abortion bill he didn’t like.”

“We will be planning to sue,” she said, adding that pro-life groups are passing abortion restrictions in hopes of national changes through a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

According to Derzis, she and her allies are in “a very fragile place right now.”

“Roe is clearly in danger and that’s what they’re preparing for … They hope by the time they get to the Supreme Court they will have changed the Supreme Court,” she said.

It is unclear whether such abortion limits will pass scrutiny in federal court.

In their Feb. 8 message, Mississippi’s Catholic bishops lamented the failure of the U.S. Senate to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would bar abortion 20 weeks after fertilization.

“We Catholic Bishops of Mississippi wish to reaffirm the sacredness of human life from conception until natural death. With Pope St. John Paul II, we recognize abortion as ‘a most serious wound inflicted on society and its culture by the very people who ought to be society’s promoters and defenders’,” the bishops said, citing St. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae.

Legislators “have a duty to make courageous choices in support of life, especially through legislative measures,” they said.

“We ask continued prayer for a culture of life to prevail in our society, and we urge those who voted against this legislation – especially those who are Catholic – to reconsider.”

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Washington D.C., Nov 1, 2018 / 04:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A plan floated by President Donald Trump to end “birthright citizenship” through an executive order is likely unconstitutional, according to a law professor at The Catholic University of America.

“This idea that you can pass this kind of a fundamental change to the Constitution through the signing of a pen…does not comport with the Constitution,” CUA law professor Stacy Brustin told CNA.

In a recent interview with news site Axios, Trump said that the U.S. is “the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States,” according to an Oct. 30 Axios report.

“It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end,” Trump added.

The president reportedly said that he would soon end “birthright citizenship” through an executive order.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is generally understood to establish that citizenship is conferred upon all children born in the United States, regardless of the legal status or citizenship of their parents.

Brustin told CNA that the president is not empowered to change the Constitution through an executive order.

“There are two very clear and established ways of changing the Constitution that are actually articulated in the Constitution,” she explained.

“Either two-thirds of both houses of Congress have to pass a proposed amendment, and then send that amendment to the states for ratification by three-quarters of the states,” or else a Constitutional convention must be held. Typically, the Congressional route has been used for the passage of previous amendments.

If Trump were to pursue an amendment to change the practice of birthright citizenship, Brustin said, it would likely be “extremely difficult,” pointing to the failed attempts at passing other amendments, such as the unratified Equal Rights Amendment.  

The practice of jus soli, or “birthright” citizenship is fairly common throughout North and South America, while no European country grants immediate citizenship to all those born on its soil. In most European countries, the conferral of citizenship depends upon the legal status of a child’s parents, regardless of where the child happens to be born. Some countries permit citizenship to be granted after a child has resided in the country for a set number of years, but this practice varies widely.

The Fourteenth Amendment was passed shortly after the Civil War, to ensure that former slaves could not be denied citizenship. The amendment says that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Trump’s remarks appeared to endorsing a minority perspective on the amendment centered around the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” While some argue that this phrase is meant to exclude people who are in the country illegally, Brustin disagreed.

“’Subject to the jurisdiction’ has been interpreted by our court as meaning ‘present in the United States,’” explained Brustin, with the sole exception being the children born to diplomats.

“But otherwise, those who are physically present are subject to the laws of the United States. That’s generally that’s what that means,” she said.

In addition to her work in the classroom, Bustin is the director of CUA’s Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Clinic. Brustin said that the president’s words have created fear among the immigrant community she works with at the clinic.

“Whether the law is changed or not, there will be fear among those in the immigrant community that children born in the United States to immigrant parents will not be able to become citizens,” she said.

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