* Houston Chronicle…

A Texas middle school teacher has been fired after assigning an unapproved illustrated version of Anne Frank’s Diary to her eighth grade reading class. Per a report from KFDM, a spokesperson for Hamshire-Fannett ISD, located south of Beaumont, released a statement confirming the teacher was sent home on Wednesday after reading a passage from Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation in which Frank wrote about male and female genitalia. An investigation into the incident has since ensued.

“As you may be aware, following concerns regarding curricular selections in your student’s reading class, a substitute teacher has been facilitating the class since Wednesday, September 13, 2023,” read a district statement sent to parents obtained by KFDM. “The district is currently in the process of posting to secure a high-quality, full-time teacher as quickly as possible.”

Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager, journaled her experiences as she and her family hid for two years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Her diary, which was published in 1947, has been used in schools for decades to educate students on the the Holocaust. While previous versions of Frank’s diary omitted sections in which she wrote about sexuality, the 2018 graphic novel adapted by Ari Folman and illustrated by David Polonsky, remains faithful to the original text. Folman’s parents are Holocaust survivors.

Per KFDM, the district sent an email to parents on Tuesday, calling the content the teacher read to the class “inappropriate,” adding: “The reading of that content will cease immediately. Your student’s teacher will communicate her apologies to you and your students soon, as she has expressed those apologies to us.”

* Moving on to Georgia via the AP…

Marc Tyler Nobleman was supposed to talk to kids about the secret co-creator of Batman, with the aim of inspiring young students in suburban Atlanta’s Forsyth County to research and write.

Then the school district told him he had to cut a key point from his presentation — that the artist he helped rescue from obscurity had a gay son. Rather than acquiesce, he canceled the last of his talks.

“We’re long past the point where we should be policing people talking about who they love,” Nobleman said in a telephone interview. “And that’s what I’m hoping will happen in this community.”

State laws restricting talk of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools have proliferated in recent years, but the clash with Nobleman shows schools may be limiting such discussions even in states like Georgia that haven’t officially banned them. Some proponents of broader laws giving parents more control over schools argue they extend to discussion of sex and gender even if the statutes don’t explicitly cover them.

* The Hill…

A Florida judge has denied a motion to temporarily block a portion of a state law that restricts access to gender-affirming health care for adults, dealing a blow to transgender individuals in a state whose medical care has been significantly disrupted by a slate of policies adopted by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

Florida in May joined more than a dozen other states in banning gender-affirming health care for transgender minors under legislation signed by DeSantis. The law, Senate Bill 254, also set up significant barriers for transgender adults to get needed treatment.

District Court Judge Robert Hinkle in June partially blocked the law’s restrictions on gender-affirming health care for transgender youths, ruling that the Florida law prohibits the administration of care “even when medically appropriate” and there is “no rational basis for a state to categorically ban these treatments.”

But the law does “not prohibit adults from obtaining treatments of the kind the plaintiffs seek,” Hinkle wrote in an order filed Monday, responding to a motion seeking an emergency block on the law’s restrictions on adult care.

* Florida, New Hampshire, Oklahoma via Rolling Stone…

On Thursday, the New Hampshire Board of Education voted unanimously to approve an online PragerU “Cash Course” for use in the state’s remote Learn Everywhere program. Students who take the course, which consists of 15 five-minute videos, would be able to earn graduation credit toward the state’s financial literacy education requirement. […]

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, which has prioritized infusing schools with right-wing ideology, was certainly accommodating in Florida. The push in New Hampshire was backed by Edelblut and board chair Andrew Cline, who also serves as president of the Josiah Bartlett Center, a conservative free-market think tank. Earlier this month in Oklahoma, culture warring Republican superintendent Ryan Walters announced a “partnership” with PragerU, without subjecting the materials to a state curriculum review. In Texas, where school board members are elected, the organization has been making overtures to Republican members of the board and engaged in deceptive practices to suggest their materials have received state approval.

In each of these states, concerns have been raised — and often ignored — over PragerU’s content. “[They’re] notorious for having ultra-conservative and highly ideological views on everything from climate change, to racism, to slavery, [and] anti-LGBTQ stances,” Matt Wilhelm, the Democratic leader of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, tells Rolling Stone. “Obviously, we’ve got concerns about PragerU and their reputation threatening the integrity of public education in the state of New Hampshire.” […]

In Oklahoma, school districts protested their superintendent’s approval of PragerU by forcefully declaring that the organization’s content does not align with their established educational standards. Various districts told OKC Fox25 that they had no plans to allow Prager’s content to actually be used in classrooms, as it had not undergone review in accordance with Oklahoma Academic Standards.

* Austin Chronicle…

Travel restrictions have begun popping up around Texas, as anti-abortion activists attempt to block Texans from receiving legal abortions outside the state.

Last week, the city of Chandler and Mason County both introduced ordinances that would intimidate those attempting to use city or county roads to leave the state for an abortion, but they failed amid concerns about legal ramifications. However, Mitchell and Goliad counties have already passed similar ordinances, and the city of Llano introduced another that has since been temporarily tabled. Interstate 20 runs through Mitchell County on the way from Dallas toward New Mexico, and Llano sits at the crossroads of Highways 29 and 71, which Austinites would take to New Mexico.

The ordinances – which Planned Parenthood Texas Votes contends are blatantly unconstitutional – use a similar vigilante enforcement system as SB 8, which allows citizens to sue people violating the ordinance.

Wendy Davis, senior advisor at PPTV, said in a press release this week that the laws “foster even greater fear, intimidation, and confusion among people traveling for abortion and reproductive health care. … By attempting to restrict travel, Texas seeks to make pregnant people prisoners of the state, isolate them from support, and force them to give birth no matter what.” Lilith Fund told the Washington Post that the purpose of the laws is not enforcement but intimidation.

If such ordinances are contested and go to the Supreme Court, it’s unlikely they would be upheld – Vox notes that even Brett Kavanaugh, during hearings on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said he would protect the constitutional right to interstate travel. But in the suit that decided SB 8’s constitutionality, Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, the Supreme Court allowed bounty hunters to enforce laws. And other states have already found ways to work around the constitution – in April, Idaho made it a crime to help a minor obtain an abortion, including by traveling across state lines. That law is the subject of a Planned Parenthood suit, which should be decided within the next few weeks.

* The Guardian…

In this year’s only opportunity for US voters to directly weigh in on the right to abortion, an upcoming ballot referendum in Ohio will include language that describes a fetus as an “unborn child”, in a disappointing loss for abortion rights activists in the state who had sued to stop voters from seeing language they say is misleading.

Ohioans are set to vote on 7 November on a referendum to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution. The outcome of the vote could not only determine the future of Ohio’s six-week abortion ban, which is currently frozen pending litigation, but also for the midwest writ large. The state has become one of the few in the region to still permit abortions since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year.

The Ohio referendum’s journey to the ballot box has been a long one. In an August special election, voters resoundingly rejected a GOP-backed ballot measure that would have required all constitutional amendments to garner 60% of the vote, rather than the simple majority currently required for passage. The measure was loudly denounced as an attempt to kneecap the abortion referendum and keep it from passing.

Weeks after Republicans lost that election, the Ohio ballot board met to decide what language should show up on voters’ ballots regarding Issue 1, the abortion referendum. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights proposed using the text of the amendment, which includes guarantees that the state cannot interfere with the right to contraception, miscarriage care and abortion up until the point of viability, a benchmark that’s generally pegged to about 24 weeks of pregnancy.

* Idaho and Tennessee…

Women and physicians in Idaho and Tennessee have sued their home states after they say they were denied abortion care despite being diagnosed with serious, life-threatening medical conditions while pregnant.

The lawsuits are led by the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., which also helped a patient in Oklahoma file a complaint against a hospital that denied her abortion care.

The filings come after 13 women sued the state of Texas for similar reasons and a judge in that case ruled that all the women should have been given abortions. That ruling has been appealed by the state and is now on hold, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“It is clear that in filing that lawsuit in Texas, we hit the tip of a very large iceberg,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center, on Tuesday. “Today, (plaintiffs) are holding their states accountable for the suffering they have caused.”

* The Hill…

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) defended legislation she signed that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, after former President Trump called Florida’s six-week ban on the procedure a “terrible thing.”

“It’s never a ‘terrible thing’ to protect innocent life,” Reynolds said Tuesday in a post on X. “I’m proud of the fetal heartbeat bill the Iowa legislature passed and I signed in 2018 and again earlier this year.”

Trump, whose Supreme Court justice appointments led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for signing a six-week abortion ban. The former president called the move “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake” during an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Trump has faced backlash from opponents of abortion rights for his comments.

Reynolds signed Iowa’s abortion ban into law in July. The state passed a similar version of the law in 2018, but a court halted it because Roe v. Wade was still in effect.

* AP…

Abortion-rights advocates asked a judge on Monday to rewrite what they call misleading descriptions of several constitutional amendments on abortion that voters could see on Missouri’s 2024 ballot.

Missouri is among several states, including Ohio, where abortion opponents are fighting efforts to ensure or restore access to the procedure following the fall of Roe v. Wade last year.

In part, one of the Missouri petitions would amend the state’s constitution to ban government infringement on the “fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care.”

* Indiana…

After his failed efforts to discipline an Indiana doctor who provided emergency abortion care to a 10-year-old rape survivor, the state’s anti-abortion Republican attorney general is now suing her employer.

His lawsuit also comes as he faces three ethics charges from the state Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Commission, which found that Todd Rokita’s statements to right-wing media and elsewhere about Dr Caitlin Bernard in the wake of the high-profile case violated attorney ethics rules. […]

During an appearance on Fox News, Mr Rokita called her “an abortion activist acting as a doctor”. He later issued subpoenas to doctors and healthcare facilities seeking medical records relating to the patient.

Last year, as Mr Rokita sought to revoke the doctor’s license, a judge argued that he acted unlawfully with his allegations of wrongdoing in violation of his own office’s confidentiality requirements. He caused “irreparable harm” to her reputation with his “unlawful breaches” of confidentiality provisions after he discussed his investigation on national news and in the press, according to a judge.