Posted on 07/17/2018 6:06:20 PM PDT by Morgana
NEW YORK - As a case over whether the state of Texas can require fetal remains to be buried is argued in Federal Court this week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops a major victory just hours before opening arguments began, saying they did not have to comply with a third party subpoena that would have required the bishops to release decades of internal correspondence over the issue of abortion.
In a ruling on Sunday, Judge James Ho said a circuit court’s order was a broad overreach that specifically targeted the Texas bishops with an aim to prevent them from engaging in public policy debates.
“It is hard to imagine a better example of how far we have strayed from the text and original understanding of the Constitution than this case,” wrote Ho.
“The First Amendment expressly guarantees the free exercise of religion - including the right of the Bishops to express their profound objection to the moral tragedy of abortion, by offering free burial services for fetal remains. By contrast, nothing in the text or original understanding of the Constitution prevents a state from requiring the proper burial of fetal remains,” he wrote in a concurring opinion.
In 2017, the Texas Senate passed a bill that would require the cremation or burial of fetal remains. After Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law, an ensuing legal battle commenced between the state and Whole Woman’s Health, a network of privately owned abortion clinics.
(Excerpt) Read more at cruxnow.com ...
This strikes me as more of a holding action than a major victory.
By referencing the Masterpiece case, the Judge was saying the request for the subpoenas was disqualified because it was motivated by anti-religious animus. If you can knock out anything that smells of religious animus, that's --- wow. It's big.
Nowadays you have to take what you can get. And this was definitely better than a lot of outcomes.
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