* Starting off in Alabama via the New York Times…

Alabama doctors are puzzled over whether they will have to make changes to in vitro fertilization procedures. Couples have crammed into online support groups wondering if they should transfer frozen embryos out of state. And attorneys are warning that divorce settlements that call for frozen embryos to be destroyed may now be void.

Throughout Alabama, there is widespread shock, anger and confusion over how to proceed after the state Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are people, a potentially far-reaching decision that could upend women’s reproductive health care in a state that already has one of the nation’s strictest abortion laws. […]

Interviews with physicians and attorneys in Alabama, as well as advocates on both sides of the issue nationwide, paint a confusing path forward for IVF clinics trying to interpret the ramifications of the ruling. Although physicians hope the Alabama legislature will limit the impacts of the ruling, they warn that the most dire consequence of the ruling is that some Alabama IVF clinics may be forced to suspend their operations.

“Under the current Alabama ruling, patients nor physicians nor IVF labs are going to be willing to have frozen embryos,” said Mamie McLean, a physician at one of the state’s largest fertility clinics, Alabama Fertility Specialists. “So if we are faced with two potential embryos that need to be transferred, modern practice would say transfer one and freeze one. But under this ruling, it may not be safe to freeze embryos so we will be forced to transfer two embryos … which increases the lifelong health risks to both mothers and children.”

* Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs’ op-ed in the Tribune…

The new battlefield over abortion rights centers on the use of in vitro fertilization. It’s a battle that is highly personal for me and my wife, Erica.

Last summer, we became the parents of twin sons Max and Theo. For this blessed event to happen, we needed reproductive health care. Erica has endometriosis, a condition that makes it difficult to conceive a child naturally. It affects an estimated 11% of women in our country, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In vitro fertilization made it possible for Erica to conceive and for us to start a family.

Now Alabama, Florida and Missouri want to take away a woman’s right to use IVF to have a child, emboldened by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 disastrous Dobbs decision that took away the constitutional right to abortion.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe, the “personhood” debate took center stage, with Republicans attempting to define a fertilized egg or embryo as a legal human entity. During IVF, a doctor collects eggs from a woman, sperm is used to fertilize the eggs outside the body and one fertilized egg is implanted at a time.

For Erica, a doctor collected eggs during four rounds. Five days after fertilization, we had four embryos. After testing, only one of them was viable. “Personhood” laws would consider the unviable collections of cells people, and doctors or their patients would be considered to have committed a crime by disposing of them.

* Indiana…

After [the Indiana Attorney General’s office] consistently heard from student, parents, and teachers about objectionable curricula, policies, or programs affecting children, we launched the Eyes on Education portal.

Our kids need to focus on fundamental educational building blocks, not political ideology - either left or right.

Eyes on Education is a platform for students, parents, and educators to submit and view real examples from classrooms across the state.

The Office of the Attorney General will follow up on materials submitted to the portal that may violate Indiana law using our investigative tools, including public records requests, and publish findings on the portal as well.

To view examples or submit to the portal, select the school corporation and name of the school and upload your documents.

Upon submission, someone from our office may contact you for additional information or clarification.

Submissions to the portal will be reviewed and published regularly.

* Tennessee…

Last week, Tennessee state lawmakers passed HB 878, which states “a person shall not be required to solemnize a marriage.”

In Tennessee, only certain people can “solemnize” the “rite of matrimony,” including state notary publics, government officials, and religious figures, according to state code. […]

Camilla Taylor, deputy legal director for litigation for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal advocacy group, said that the law is an effort to “roll back recent progress by the LGBTQ community.”

“Tennessee House Bill 878 would be patently unconstitutional,” Taylor said in a statement to CNN. “Public officials don’t get to assume public office and then pick and choose which members of the public to serve.”

The governor signed the bill into law yesterday.

* Moving on to the Lone Star State…

Two dozen protesters gathered near a Texas superintendent’s home on Wednesday to support a Black teen who has been suspended for most of the school year over the length of his dreadlocks.

Hairstylists, children and activists filled a neighborhood entrance in Baytown, about 26 miles east of Houston, chanting “Justice for Darryl George” and carrying signs with hashtags like #DoesMyHairOffendYou and #MyHairIsNotAThreat.

They gathered near the home of Barbers Hill Independent School District Superintendent Greg Poole, one day before a judge is set to hear arguments to determine whether the district can continue to punish George for refusing to change his hairstyle. George and his family have refused to cut his hair, setting off a months long battle between the family and the school district. […]

Janaie Roberts, a loctician, set up a salon chair during the demonstration and styled protesters’ dreadlocks in a show of support. “I’m an advocate for natural hair. This is how we express ourselves, so it’s not fair for us to be held back,” she said. “Just like we have freedom of speech, we have the freedom to be ourselves.” […]

George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, has been in in-school suspension or at an off-site disciplinary program for most of the school year. His ordeal started in August, when school officials said that George’s hair, which he wears in neatly twisted dreadlocks away from his face and neck, violates a district dress code regulating the length of boys’ hair.

UPDATE Texas Judge rules in favor of the school district. NBC…

After just a few hours of testimony in Anahuac, state District Judge Chap Cain III ruled in favor of the school district, saying its ongoing discipline of George over the length of his hair is legal under the CROWN Act. For most of the school year, George has either served in-school suspension at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu or spent time at an off-site disciplinary program.

“We appreciate the court giving clarity to the meaning of the CROWN Act,” said Sara Leon, an attorney for the school district.

The school district did not offer any witnesses to testify before the ruling, instead only submitting evidence that included an affidavit from the district’s superintendent defending the dress code policy.

End of update.

Sen. Mike Simmons’ Jett Hawkins Law took effect in 2022. The law prevents school boards, public and charter schools from banning hairstyles historically associated with any race or ethnicity.

…Adding… From Sen. Simmons….

“It’s well past time for the state of Texas to let go of the past and respect Darryl George, a 17 year old Black youth who is wearing his hair authentically and doesn’t need harassment from school officials. That harassment is also now against Texas own laws under the new CROWN Act, so I hope the trial underway delivers justice to Darryl and millions of Texans of African descent and respects the intent of the CROWN Act. It’s time to turn the page in this dark and ugly chapter, just like we did in Illinois in 2021 when we passed the landmark Jett Hawkins Act.”

* More from Texas…

When disabled Texans used to visit abortion clinics, staffers would remember them. They may have needed in-clinic accommodations or American Sign Language Interpreters, and they appeared infrequently. Still, they came.

But more than a year since performing abortions became illegal in the state of Texas, disabled people have become a “missing population” at the clinics still providing abortions out of state, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider.

“We’re not seeing them traveling over the border,” Miller said. “They just represent a group of people that are falling through the cracks.”

Other than the internal statistics of some abortion providers, abortion fund groups that help pay for the procedure or its transportation costs, and advocacy groups, there’s no central data tracking how many disabled Texans have sought abortions.

* Texas…

This year 35 states will participate in a $2.5 billion federal nutrition program that will help low-income parents buy groceries for their children when free school meals are unavailable during the summer months.

But Texas, which has 3.8 million children eligible for the program, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has opted not to join this national effort. If it had, qualifying families would have received $120 per child through a pre-loaded card for the three summer months. The USDA calculated that Texas is passing on a total of $450 million in federal tax dollars that would have gone to eligible families here.

The reason for the pass is simple, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. When the USDA notified HHSC officials of their new Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer, or EBT program on Dec. 29, that gave the nation’s second largest state only six months to get it up and running and that’s not enough time, said Tiffany Young, a spokesperson for the state agency.

Although the summer program would involve two other agencies as well – the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Department of Agriculture – HHSC would have to bear the brunt of the work because they would have to coordinate and direct the distribution of the preloaded cards to qualifying families.

* Florida…

Newsmax has joined the legions of conservative media outlets and figures who have trashed a pair of Florida GOP bills that ostensibly aim to curb so-called “liberal media” by loosening the definition of defamation.

“Newsmax strongly opposes both bills and any proposed law that makes it easy to sue media companies,” Chris Ruddy, Newsmax’s CEO, said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Free speech and a free press are the most fundamental of our constitutional rights and must be zealously safeguarded.” (Newsmax maintains a headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida, and Ruddy is a West Palm Beach native and a friend of former President Donald Trump.)

The bills—House Bill 757 and its Florida Senate companion, SB 1780—would lower the threshold for defamation in Florida, allowing public officials to sue journalists and media outlets if an anonymous source says something the official believes to be false. The bills passed out of a Florida House committee on Wednesday in a 14-7 vote, and it is next headed to a Florida House vote.

Whatever the right-wing legislative effort’s intentions, these conservative critics say, it would be an affront to the First Amendment and would ultimately harm right-of-center media.

* Utah…

The Utah State Board of Education could conduct a hearing on whether a school library book or other materials should be removed statewide under a compromise between state lawmakers that led to final passage of HB29 on Wednesday.

The House voted 52-18 to approve the compromise legislation.

A conference committee of Utah Senate and House of Representatives members agreed to language that gives the state school board the option of holding a hearing after three school districts or two school districts and five charter schools determine the materials are pornographic or indecent, which under HB29, triggers removal of the materials statewide.

The board could decide not to hold a hearing, which means the book or materials would be removed from collections statewide.