This will also delay resolution of the issue, which may suit the Trump Administration, while leaving open the possibility that the judge to whom the case is transferred will buy the arguments about the Comstock Act and FDA authority.

Two more important things: 1) this suit is meant to get a federal court to finally interpret the Comstock Act as a ban/ force a response from SCOTUS and Trump; 2) it reinforces arguments for fetal personhood (note that is a class action on behalf of all "fathers of unborn children")

We were long promised that cross-border wars over abortion would center on wrongful death suits brought by men. This may be the start, in a suit filed by Jonathan Mitchell. Why is this a big deal? It may feel like it's not because the TX state suit and Louisiana prosecution didn't go anywhere. /1

Medina on its own will likely harder for plaintiffs to enforce other civil rights in federal court. And as far as reproductive health is concerned, this case could be part of a one-two punch if Trump's Big Beautiful Bill passes.

Skrmetti caps off decades of movement work to rethink sex discrimination jurisprudence across the board. The goal was to ensure law could regulate based on biological difference, broadly defined --as one ADF attorney explained, to show that “one cannot deny the reality of biological sex.”

Look at how much work the Court's abortion cases do here. The majority cites Dobbs to say that regulating a medical condition/procedure isn't sex discrimination, and another abortion case, Gonzales v. Carhart, to suggest that legislatures deserve discretion when there is scientific uncertainty.

Striking story: a man accused of putting abortion pills into his girlfriend's drink without her consent is being charged not with criminal abortion or reproductive coercion but with capital murder in Texas. A test for personhood politics in the state. www.star-telegram.com/news/local/c...

The strategy in this case, involving what movement members call a guardian for the unborn, has been a defining strategy for fetal personhood since the 1960s. There are more federal personhood cases in the pipeline like this one in MN: www.mprnews.org/story/2024/1...

Today, the Trump Admin issued this on EMTALA. What does it mean? www.cms.gov/newsroom/pre...

The study designed to give Trump a chance to revisit the rules governing mifepristone wasn't isolated. Here's the sequel; we'll see if it prompts HHS to end telehealth access. lozierinstitute.org/the-origins-...

Anyone have a copy of the MO Supreme Court order from yesterday, and Judge Zhang's February ruling? The MO courts page seems to be down?

Huge news. This bill was heralded as a model for other states. My guess is that it was taken down by its language blocking state courts from ruling on its constitutionality. Don't be surprised if many of these proposals are back, in TX and elsewhere, minus that idea.

worth the wait - this week's #WTHealth podcast! With @alicemiranda.bsky.social, @annaedney.bsky.social, and @sarahkarlin-smith.bsky.social, plus @maryrziegler.bsky.social on her new personhood book! kffhealthnews.org/news/podcast...

The GA AG claims that Adriana Smith doesn't have to be kept on life support because taking her off wouldn't qualify as a "direct abortion" and violate the state's ban. But that's wrong because GA's law is a *fetal personhood* law. Want to learn more? I have a book! www.amazon.com/Personhood-N...

AP's reporting on GA may confuse readers. It says pro-lifers are divided on personhood bills. That's true of bills authorizing punishment of women but NOT of the idea of personhood, which is what is driving events in Georgia. This isn't an outlier. apnews.com/article/preg...

To be clear, it’s not that there are five votes to *uphold* Trump’s patently unlawful and unconstitutional limits on birthright citizenship; it’s that there seem to be five votes to hold that district courts can grant relief only to plaintiffs—so the policy would go into effect against all others.

"Investigation" into mifepristone has been a defining policy. At first, this was a way to buy time, given that the abortion issue hurts Republicans. Now it looks like political cover. Trump's past talk of state's rights will be portrayed as sincere; he will say that new data have changed his mind.

Wow--honored that @npr picked Personhood as the book of the day. www.npr.org/2025/05/08/1... You can pick up a copy here: www.amazon.com/Personhood-N...

Want to make sense of the Trump filing yesterday? Remember it says nothing about FDA approval of mifepristone or whether the Comstock Act is an abortion ban. Trump is giving himself room to do whatever he wants on mifepristone on his own timeline. And one more thing:

Today, in a huge case on mifepristone, the Trump Administration filed a brief arguing that the state plaintiffs couldn't satisfy venue requirements in Amarillo & don't have standing. litigationtracker.law.georgetown.edu/wp-content/u... What does it mean?

Thanks to @velshimsnbc.bsky.social for the chance to talk about fetal personhood and my new book, Personhood. Here's a link to the New Yorker review: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... You can pick up a copy here or at your bookstore: www.amazon.com/Personhood-N...

Looking forward to joining @velshi.com on @velshimsnbc.bsky.social to talk about Personhood. Hope you can listen!

NEW: The US anti-abortion movement's ultimate goal was never just overturning Roe v. Wade. Since its inception, it has always been a fetal-personhood movement. Check out an excerpt from @maryrziegler.bsky.social's new book, "Personhood: The New Civil War over Reproduction."

Thanks to @hereandnow.bsky.social for featuring Personhood today, and to @tizianadearing.bsky.social for a wonderful conversation. Hope you enjoy reading! www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2... www.amazon.com/Personhood-N...

Excited to join @kqedforum.bsky.social tomorrow to talk about Personhood one day after the pub date. Hope you can listen and read the book!

Personhood is out today! Thanks to the amazing @amylittlefield.bsky.social for this conversation about the book. You can pick up a copy of the book here: bookshop.org/p/books/pers... or on Amazon: www.amazon.com/Personhood-N...

Thanks to @slate.com for posting an edited excerpt from Personhood a day out from the publication date. You can read it here: slate.com/news-and-pol...

Looking forward to joining 1A on @npr to talk about my new book, Personhood, (which is out tomorrow!) and the coming battles over IVF and abortion this year and the rest of the Trump Administration. Hope you can listen.

Great big books-slash-current events double header show. @mjsdc.bsky.social and @leahlitman.bsky.social preview her incredible new book, Lawless. Then @maryrziegler.bsky.social and I catch up on abortion wars and personhood, tagged to her new book Personhood.

Thanks @nytimes.com for featuring Personhood in the list of recently published books to watch in today's print edition. "Ziegler, a leading historian of abortion, looks beyond Roe v. Wade to the future battleground for reproductive rights." You can pre-order here: buff.ly/V6YwuE

Thanks @womenknowlaw.bsky.social! Looking forward to talking about the book a bunch of places soon, starting with a conversation with @dahlialithwick.bsky.social on Amicus this coming Saturday.

If you want a copy, wany or to listen to the audio book, here are a few links: www.amazon.com/Personhood-N... yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

My new book, Personhood, is out a week from tomorrow. Thanks to Margaret Talbot for this generous @newyorker.com review. Hope you enjoy the book! www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Worth watching this suit. It argues that MN's repro rights law violates women's constitutional parental rights w/ an unborn child. It relies on arguments about abortion coercion--a major movement strategy--and could be the way fetal personhood gets to SCOTUS. stopcoercedabortions.com#blank-3

Major ruling yesterday. The next round of conflict about abortion will be about speech/conflicts of law too. State AGs argue that they are simply punishing crime-facilitating speech, which doesn't get protection. But who gets to define what is a crime, esp if an abortion is legal where it occurs.

Lest there be any doubt that this case against Dr. Margaret Carpenter is ending up at SCOTUS, I don't there should be anymore. The first of what is likely to be many cross-border conflicts about abortion: www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/h...

Thanks to @lsolum.bsky.social for highly recommending my new piece with Dov Fox, which is forthcoming in the @columlrev.bsky.social. We're not just editing but also writing a book on IVF's story, and so welcome comments. lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/...

More of my thoughts on what's going on with Texas's seemingly first-of-its-kind post-Roe prosecution.

Reva Siegel and I wrote more about these changes in a forthcoming piece in the Virginia Law Review: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Why this case? To argue that unlicensed providers/midwives threaten women. But TX targeted *licensed* physician Margaret Carpenter from NY. This is a message about what abortion is, but it won't be the last prosecution.

I'm telling you to as well, FWIW. 😇

The history here is instructive: before Roe, prosecutions tended to focus on non-physicians, and disproportionately on midwives, especially those who weren't white. We see the same now--and for strategic reasons. This isn't the first prosecution Paxton could bring but the one his office chose.

What's surprising is how long this took. I expect we'll see more of the same in the months to come: the Trump Administration slowly and without fanfare adopting the positions abortion opponents want, even on issues, like this, that won't play well politically.

This is in line with what the admin has done so far: investigating, a la RFK. It was hard to tell if this was just slow-walking, but increasingly, I think review will mean new restrictions. The q for me is whether the Trump DOJ will treat the Comstock Act as a ban, as KS, ID, and MO do in this case.

Thank you!

By some strange coincidence, Reva Siegel and I were together yesterday when Comstockery published. Thanks to everyone at the Yale Law Journal for their help, and for everyone who read and commented on the paper! www.yalelawjournal.org

Honored to be among the historians writing a first cut on Biden for @princetonucpress (edited by @julianzelizer). @jennyschuessler does a great job of capturing the strange task we face in writing about Biden in what she aptly calls the Age of Trump: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/a...

SCOTUS declined to take up a case designed to undermine a 2001 ruling called Hill v. Colorado. Justice Thomas was flummoxed about why when Dobbs, the decision reversing Roe, plainly criticized Hill. But I don't think we can read too much into this.

Happy to announce my latest co-authored piece with @naomirc.bsky.social and @maxineeichner.bsky.social, For Their Benefit: The Lost History of Parental Consent and Minors' Rights, will be published in the @CalifLRev. We haven't posted on SSRN yet but will soon!

Excited my latest w/ Dov Fox, The New Abortion: IVF's Regulatory History and Post-Roe Future, is now forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review! The piece presents the first legal history of the relationship between IVF & abortion. Why was IVF unregulated when abortion provoked conflict in the past, /1