Welcome to the Napa Legal Podcast, where we discuss religious liberty from the perspective of faith-based nonprofits.

In this guest episode, Napa Legal's Senior Counsel Frank DeVito is joined by Clare Anne Ath, co-founder and president of Vita et Terra, a Catholic apostolate launched this year to advocate for care for creation. Join them for a discussion of three recent developments in state abortion law. Together they examine what these laws mean for parental consent, for sidewalk counselors and pro-life advocates, and for the free speech and free exercise protections that faith-based organizations depend on.

In this episode, we discuss:

0:00 Introduction

0:45 Clare's background and the launch of Vita et Terra

2:12 Why care for creation has been ceded to the political left

3:03 People as stewards, not problems

4:26 Building Catholic formation materials on creation care

5:09 Turning to the life issue

6:14 Massachusetts signs abortion without limits into law

6:33 "An Act Prioritizing Patient Access to Care" and the language of abortion policy

7:29 What third-trimester abortion actually involves

8:32 Why blue states are pushing further after Dobbs

9:45 Ten states and Washington, DC with no restrictions at all

10:31 Abortion pills in the mail and the Comstock Act

12:29 A Catholic governor and the question of scandal

13:03 Abolitionist and incrementalist approaches to ending abortion

16:17 Why the United States has no reliable abortion reporting data

17:58 Virginia's ballot amendment this November

18:34 How "every individual" would erase parental consent

20:18 A 17-year-old, a bus to New Jersey, and a call to her mother

22:41 Chemical abortion risks and what parents are not told

24:55 Abortion inside the Church

25:50 New Jersey criminalizes "interference" with abortion

26:36 The FACE Act and the prosecution of sidewalk counselors

29:28 Buffer zones, the First Amendment, and the comparison to the UK

33:29 Defunding Planned Parenthood

35:10 Conclusion

Learn more about Clare's work at https://www.vitaetterra.org/ and follow her on X at @clareanneath

For more about Napa Legal and our work, visit our website here: https://www.napalegalinstitute.org/

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