Beyoncé to perform at Harris abortion campaign rally in Texas | National Catholic Register

Harris used Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” as a rallying cry throughout his campaign.

Here’s a roundup of the latest pro-life and abortion news from the US and abroad:

Beyoncé to appear at Kamala Harris rally to mobilize voters around abortion

Beyoncé is set to join Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Houston that will focus on abortion, according to Washington Post.

The Harris campaign described Texas as “ground zero of the nation’s extreme abortion bans.” Friday’s rally will be “centered on abortion rights,” the Post reported.

Texas native Beyoncé previously performed at a rally for Hillary Clinton in 2016, just days before the Democratic presidential candidate lost the election to Donald Trump.

Harris used Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” as a rallying cry throughout his campaign.

Ohio judge throws out heartbeat ban, citing voter-approved abortion ‘rights’ amendment

A Hamilton County Common Pleas Court judge ruled Thursday that Ohio’s heartbeat law is “unconstitutional” in light of a voter-passed constitutional amendment. overwhelmingly last November, which enshrined abortion as a constitutional right.

First passed in 2019, the state’s heartbeat law banned abortion procedures if a fetal heartbeat was detected. The law didn’t go into effect until after the Dobbs decision in 2022, but it was temporarily blocked by Judge Christian Jenkins within three months.

“The voters of Ohio have spoken,” Jenkins wrote in this week’s decision granting a permanent injunction. “The Ohio Constitution now unequivocally protects the right to abortion.”

Students for Life group forced to stop meeting on San Antonio campus

A group of pro-life high school students in San Antonio was forced to abandon their campus meeting after administration officials said the club was “impeding education” and “creating an uproar in the school,” according to local news outlet KENS5. report.

Diego Salinas, founder of the Students for Life of America chapter at Sonia Sotomayor High School, told KENS5 the group met only once before it was shut down by the administration.

Salinas had been preparing to launch the club this fall, setting up an Instagram account for the group with the handle “Sotomayer Students for Life,” which drew attention from students. Citing district policy, the administration forced Salinas to delete the account, which featured the school’s name.

The weekend after the group’s first meeting, pro-life students faced backlash and were eventually instructed by school officials to end the meeting.

Salinas claimed that despite taking all the necessary steps described by the school to establish the group and readily complying with the administration, Students for Life was “marginalized” for its beliefs because other groups were allowed to meet and use the school name.

“Sotomayor HS has fully complied with the district’s policy regarding student expression and the use of school facilities for non-school business by providing a limited open forum,” the school district wrote in a statement, adding, “The matter is currently under discussion by the school . administration.”

Irish Parliament votes to accept ‘Assisted Dying’ report

The lower and upper house of Ireland’s legislative assembly voted 76 to 53 to back a report by the Commission on Assisted Dying.

While the vote does not involve any legislative change, the Final Report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Assisted Dying contains 38 recommendations that strongly favor legislative permission for the practice.

Among those recommendations, the committee recommends the government allow medically assisted dying in limited circumstances, such as those with six months to live or for patients suffering from neurodegenerative conditions, up to one year.

In particular, the report also recommends that the government prosecute those found to have coerced someone into assisted suicide and that doctors receive training to help them identify cases of such a crime.

Sinn Féin Health Spokesperson and Member of the Assisted Dying Committee David Cullinane said The Irish Times that “it would be up to the next government to decide what to do next” about the policy change.

“It’s going to be a challenge to move from a committee report to a legal framework that’s robust and can ensure that all the safeguards around coercion, assisted decision-making and all that stuff,” he added.