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(SRN NEWS) – A judge has permanently blocked an Ohio law that would have required that the bodies of aborted babies be cremated or buried.  The decision by Hamilton County Judge Alison Hatheway came in a case brought by a group of abortion clinics and the ACLU.  The judge found that the 2020 law violates a 2023 amendment that enshrined abortion in the Ohio constitution.  Pro-life advocates argued that the law assured some measure of human dignity for aborted babies.  Abortion advocates called it an effort to obstruct access to abortion. 

President Trump has signed an executive order that aims to help people hoping to expand their families through in vitro fertilization by reducing costs for the procedure.  Those costs can now range from 12,000 to 25,000 dollars per cycle. Mr. Trump’s order instructs the assistant to the president for domestic policy to give the president a list of policy recommendations on protecting IVF access and “aggressively reducing costs”.  Some pro-life advocates oppose IVF because the procedure can involve the destruction of human embryos. 

Kansas has become the latest state to ban sex-change operations on children.  The Republican-led Legislature has voted to override Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of the measure.  The action makes Kansas the 27th state to ban or restrict such procedures.  It comes less than a month after President Trump issued an order barring federal support for sex-change operations and puberty-blocking drugs on any one under the age of 19.  The Kansas ban may go into place as early as this week.  Other states are considering similar bills. 

During his trip to the United Arab Emirates this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Abu Dhabi’s Abrahamic Family House, which contains a Catholic church, a Jewish synagogue and an Islamic Mosque on its grounds.  It was established two years ago by the UAE government, under international pressure over repression of Christians and Jews in the country.  However, proselytizing outside of the Islamic faith remains illegal in the UAE and Islam is enshrined as the official religion in the country’s constitution. Blasphemy laws also carry a possible death sentence.