Indiana abortion: Mike Pence 'commends' Supreme Court for upholding foetal burial law
Lily Puckett
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Mystery grows after Mike Pence cancels trip to New Hampshire
Vice president Mike Pence has generally been a consistent source of stability in a Trump administration renown for chaos, but he swapped roles with the president this week after he abruptly cancelled a planned trip to New Hampshire.Mr Pence had reportedly already boarded Air Force Two at Joint Andrews Base in Maryland when he abandoned his trip to Salem, where he was due to participate in a roundtable discussion and deliver remarks on the opioid crisis.But Mr Pence never arrived in New Hampshire, and rumours swirled in Washington about the possible cause of the cancellation. It is rare that something causes a vice president to abandon plans that have previously been publicised.The reason for the cancellation was not immediately clear, and initially, the announcer at the event in Salem told the crowd that Mr Pence would no longer participate in the roundtable because of an "emergency callback."“Something came up that required the @VP to remain in Washington, DC. It’s no cause for alarm. He looks forward to rescheduling the trip to New Hampshire very soon,” wrote Mr. Pence’s press secretary, Alyssa Farah, on Twitter.Theories that speculated on the reason for the cancellation, from fears of a national security risk to personal drama involving Donald Trump, were abound on Twitter for about an hour until Ms Farah provided an update.“The @VP never left Washington, DC. There was no ‘emergency callback.’ Something came up that required the VP to stay in DC. We’ll reschedule NH shortly,” Ms Farah tweeted. She did not offer further clarifications.The comments made by the Salem announcer were later denied by Mr Pence's aides, who said there was no national security emergency or heath scare that prompted the change, and that though he boarded the plane it never took off.The aides offered little else in the way of specific detail, and Mr Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, would only rule out possibilities to reporters at the White House without detailing what may have actually happened.“When would people know what happened?” reporters asked. “Weeks from now,” Mr Short replied, according to a pool report.People familiar with the matter later gave at least a partial explanation to The New York Times, saying the cause for Mr Pence's cancellation surrounded the event's venue, Granite Recovery Center, but did not offer any details.
Vice President Mike Pence has commended the Supreme Court for upholding a part of an Indiana law requiring the burial of foetal remains after abortions.
Now he's encouraging the court to review state laws that restrict when and why an abortion can be performed, and says he hopes that "legal protections against discrimination based on sex, race, or disability will someday be extended to unborn Americans."
Mr Pence signed the burial measure into law in 2016, when he was governor of Indiana.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld a requirement that foetal remains must be buried or cremated after abortion.
But it blocked an Indiana law barring abortions based on a foetus' sex, race or disability, prompting Mr Pence to cite Justice Clarence Thomas's position on the ruling in his hopes that Supreme Court will return to the decision.
Justice Thomas joined the court in declining to review Indiana's law, but issued a 20-page statement in line with the vice president's, in which he agreed that the ruling is constitutional but condemned its practical application.
He accused those who use abortion procedures, as well as birth control, of practising "eugenics."
"Given the potential for abortion to become a tool of eugenic manipulation, the Court will soon need to confront the constitutionality of laws like Indiana’s," he wrote. "But because further percolation may assist our review of this issue of first impression, I join the Court in declining to take up the issue now."
The Indiana law first came to the Supreme Court's docket in January, and the early summer decision marks a lengthy period of internal strife over it. Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said they would have declined to take up both aspects of the law, including the burials.
Abortions rights advocates have condemned the burial law.
“Today the court let another unwarranted restriction on abortion stand. While this ruling is limited, the law is part of a larger trend of state laws designed to stigmatize and drive abortion care out of reach," Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement.
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