* The New York Times reports on Florida’s push to restrict abortions…

Florida lawmakers voted to prohibit abortions after six weeks of pregnancy on Thursday, culminating a rapid effort by elected Republicans and Gov. Ron DeSantis to transform the state to one of the most restrictive in the country.

Mr. DeSantis, a likely 2024 Republican presidential contender, signed the new ban late on Thursday night with little fanfare. The ban will end Florida’s long-held role as a destination for women from across the Deep South seeking abortions and force them to travel farther, to states such as North Carolina or Illinois, for care.

In the six months after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion last year, no state saw a greater increase in the number of legal abortions performed each month than Florida, according to a report released on Tuesday.

“For the past 50 years, we’ve had a culture grow in this nation — a culture of abortion for any reason at any time,” State Representative Jenna Persons-Mulicka, a Fort Myers Republican, said before the 70-40 vote. “Today we lead. Today we stand for life. We stand with mothers, and we stand with Florida families. And by your vote today, we change the culture of abortion to a culture of life.”

* Missouri…

During debate Tuesday on a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, Missouri State Senator Mike Moon suggested children as young as 12 should have the right to marry with parental permission.

“Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12? I do. And guess what? They’re still married,” Moon said in response to questioning by Democratic state Representative Peter Merideth. A clip of the interaction has garnered attention on social media.

A southwest Missouri Republican from Ash Grove, Moon’s support of child marriage in some instances has been long documented. In 2018 Missouri passed a law raising the marriage age in the state from 15 to 16 and requiring parental permission for older teenagers to marry. Moon opposed the bill at the time — citing the same anecdote of a couple he met in college who had married one another at age 12. […]

The Senator did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the News-Leader, but defended his comments on Twitter and noted the couple he referenced was not an adult and child but two children who married after becoming pregnant.

Here’s the clip…

Here’s the clip from last night where Sen. Moon celebrates the longevity of marriages entered into by 12 year olds. #moleg pic.twitter.com/5XxPNCmvij

— Aaron Crossley (@aaroncrossley) April 12, 2023

* Trouble in Tennessee…

⚡️NEW LEAKED AUDIO: TN House Republicans infighting over #TennesseeThree votes.

CEPICKY: “You gotta do what’s right even when you think it might be wrong.”🤔

Leadership says Barrett made them look racist, Cepicky says they're at "war", etc. must-listen. pic.twitter.com/mUkzwWXvav

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 13, 2023

* More from Tennessee…

A bill that made its way through the Tennessee legislature aims to strengthen rules passed last year that can change how schools approach teaching many kinds of lessons in social justice, racial inequity, political science, social work, psychology and many other fields.

The bill passed the House of Representatives on April 13, after passing Senate on April 5.

In 2022, lawmakers passed rules that allow state leaders to withhold funding for schools that teach about social, cultural and legal issues related to race and racism. Most of those concepts focus on how the impact of racism affects people today.

The law also specified that schools can teach about ethnic groups’ histories as described in textbooks and instructional materials. Educators can also only teach about controversial aspects of history, such as racial oppression or slavery, as long those discussions are impartial.

The bill, HB 1376, was introduced by Representative John Ragan (R - Oak Ridge). He previously said that the new bill was meant to strengthen the law passed in 2022 by “promoting freedom of expression,” and keep “colleges about advancing knowledge, not about advancing political or social agendas.”

* Moving on to Texas…

When Texas Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk overruled the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion medication mifepristone late last Friday, not only was he attempting to wrest away control of our reproductive lives through a wild abuse of the law, but he was also attempting a resurrection of a notorious anti-abortion crusader who has been dead for more than a century, Anthony Comstock. Kacsmaryk is a Trump appointee serving on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Comstock is the uncanonized patron saint of sexual purity, the nineteenth-century moral entrepreneur behind an 1873 federal anti-obscenity law bearing his name, one that is still inexplicably on the books to this day. By bringing Comstock back to the forefront of the legal canon, Kacsmaryk wasn’t just ruling directly on abortion medication but offering notice that a 150-year-old law that many had presumed dead is the next vehicle that conservatives will employ to roll back sexual and reproductive freedom for anybody in the United States.

Kacsmaryk’s bow to Comstock comes in the latest order in a landmark abortion case brought with the backing of anti-abortion groups attempting to ban mifepristone, one drug used in medication abortion. It is one of the most consequential post-Dobbs reproductive rights cases, devised by legal minds on the Christian right, such as Alliance Defending Freedom, for the express purpose of winning a total, nationwide abortion ban. Kacsmaryk moves them closer to that goal in his order, citing the Comstock Act to support the plaintiffs’ attempt to overturn the FDA’s 23-year-old approval of mifepristone. Further, Kacsmaryk claims that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their argument that the Comstock Act already prohibits mailing mifepristone. The result is that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone will be overturned, effective this Friday, unless a higher court reverses Kacsmaryk’s ruling. […]

The Comstock Act could be used more broadly to ban abortion nationwide (and without having to win a Fourteenth Amendment argument anti-abortion groups could well lose). This was the case made by Mark Lee Dickson, one of the architects of Texas Senate Bill 8, the six-week abortion ban enforceable by private citizens in pursuit of bounties, to Amy Littlefield at The Nation. “If an abortion facility cannot receive abortion-inducing drugs or any abortion paraphernalia,” he explained, “then how can they perform abortions?” Does he believe Comstock would support such a legal maneuver? “To be honest,” Dixon told her, “I don’t know a whole lot about him, but I have looked at the laws, of course.”

As of this moment, “for abortion opponents, the Comstock Act is the only realistic way to force through a national ban,” argues Mary Ziegler, law professor and author of Roe: The History of a National Obsession. “That’s because it has nothing to do with what the American people want or what the Constitution means.” What those who assault mifepristone now also share with Comstock is such a quest for power, the law itself be damned. “This renaissance of misogyny and homophobia, this increasingly terrifying regulation of gendered self-expression, meted out under color of law, is what the extreme-conservative Supreme Court justices are there for,” as historian Felicia Kornbluh wrote after the Texas ruling. There is no stopping it without reckoning with that fact. Considering the breadth of conduct the Comstock Act was aimed at, not to mention the right’s big power play of the moment to redefine anything but reproductive sex between one man and one woman as tantamount to obscenity, that queerness and transness is akin to sexual predation. Kacsmaryk himself has railed publicly against what he called the demands of the “Sexual Revolution,” that “the unborn child must yield to the erotic desires of liberated adults.” It would be foolish to think this stops with even a national abortion ban.

* Business Insider…

South Dakota’s Republican governor told an audience that her 2-year-old granddaughter “already” had several guns.

Speaking at a National Rifle Association (NRA) event in Indiana on Friday, Kristi Noem spoke about her grandchildren, Addie and Branch. She said that the nearly 2-year-old Addie had a shotgun and a rifle.

“Now Addie, who you know, soon will need them, I want to reassure you, she already has a shotgun and she already has a rifle, and she’s got a little pony named Sparkles too. So the girl is set up,” Noem said.

Later, while on stage, Noem signed an executive order to “protect the God-given right to keep and bear arms from being infringed upon by financial institutions,” according to Dakota News Now.

* Arkansas…

Arkansas on Wednesday became the second state to restrict social media use by children, as Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders approved legislation requiring minors to get their parents’ permission to create a new account.

The bill signed by the Republican governor requires social media companies to contract with third-party vendors to perform age verification checks on new users. The law will apply to new accounts created starting in September.

“While social media can be a great tool and a wonderful resource, it can have a massive negative impact on our kids,” Sanders said before signing the legislation.

The proposal is similar to a first-in-the-nation law that Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed last month. Utah’s law takes effect in March 2024. Several other states are considering similar measures, touted by supporters as a way to protect children. California last year enacted a law requiring tech companies to put kids’ safety first by barring them from profiling children or using personal information in ways that could harm children physically or mentally.

* Turns out the essay requirement on what accomplishments of Arkansas governor that applicants ‘admire the most’ was chalked up to a simple design error.…

A webpage design error put the essay question, “What is an accomplishment of the Governor’s that you admire the most?” into the online application for state staff and commissions, according to a statement Thursday by the governor’s office.

The question was meant for the application to be an intern in the governor’s office — never for staff, state boards or commissions, said Alexa Henning, spokeswoman for the governor. Summer interns are temporary employees working for the state.

“Our web vendor was supposed to be editing the internship application but instead mistakenly made additions to the boards and commissions form,” Henning said in a statement. “That was never intended to be a part of the application. As soon as we realized it, we corrected it with the vendor. However, it should be news to no one that someone wanting to intern in any administration should support the work that principal and their team is pursuing.”

This year’s interns will work from June 5 through July 28, according to the state’s website. The goal of these internships is to give experience to young adults interested in public service. These summer jobs are available for U.S. citizens 18 years or older who are still enrolled in college, recently graduated or are high school graduates who have served at least two years of active duty in U.S. armed forces.

* Missouri…

While Missouri lawmakers target procedures that assist minors in transitioning genders, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, ramped up the debate last week and went after gender-affirming care for people of all ages, including adults.

Bailey filed a set of restrictions, including requiring 15 separate hourly therapy sessions over 18 months before a person can receive care. The restrictions aimed at limiting all transgender health care, including adults, are believed to be the first of their kind in the country. […]

When Bailey’s office announced the restrictions, it said the restrictions were aimed at stopping gender-affirming care for minors. But the wording of the restrictions makes no distinction between minors and adults.

“We have serious concerns about how children are being treated throughout the state, but we believe everyone is entitled to evidence-based medicine and adequate mental health care,” Madeline Sieren, Bailey’s spokesperson, told The Star in an email when specifically asked if the rules extended to adults.