Class action lawsuit against Christian religion to pay for unwanted children?

[Kidsaretryingtodestroyme]

I’m not in America but I was wondering if rich American women could band together to fund a class action lawsuit. It would be against evangelical Christian churches to force them to pay for the upkeep of all children up to 18 in states which have banned abortion. They should also be sued to pay for medical bills for the mothers including mental health bills.

You think they should sue....Congress? For the decision made by the independent Supreme Court? 🤷‍♂️

@DownNative

I can't disagree with that: I was using a common expression to describe the UK constitution, but what you say is more accurate.

You can either plot fights against a 2D, imaginary, parody of all of the people who have qualms about abortion.

Or you can listen to the people on, or around, the fence about their qualms. Take time to digest the content of said qualms and develop honest arguments that will engage with those qualms.

One will make you feel good online in a spot where people mostly agree with you already. The other is far less exciting and extremely time consuming. But more likely to make a difference in the long run. Because until the “somewhere on or around the fence” people are prepared to make access to legal abortion a “must have” at the ballot box, with the insistence that the recipient of their vote takes all available steps to firm up the law around it so it doesn’t have to be a bogeyman stick to wave at election time anymore, then access to legal abortion will remain vulnerable.

The iceberg has flipped in the USA. When America sneezes Europe risks catching the cold. Pro life didn’t change their tactics all that much, nor did pro choice. But whatever is the status quo attracts the weight of extreme, high visibility poor outcomes and deliberately provocative/ “my moral superiority” / no debate opinions. Over time it becomes the big end, and the flip happens. Unless we wish to wait it out for several decades til they catch enough weight from being the status quo, the mode of engagement with more flexible hearts and minds needs to change. That can’t happen if we prance around in digital armour, fighting dragons we created in our imagination instead.

The religious zealot who gets excited about the prospects of a Talibanesque control of women is a rare beast, and doesn’t tend to make much of a dent in public opinion in the west. The people who have qualms can and do. At the moment they are shifting each other. Less with slogans and big acts of defiance, more with nuanced and calm-ish conversations. Where people can speak without being labelled mole, bot, spy or heretic. Either we show up in those conversations, or we carry on with Big Acts of Defiance & soundbites that failed to stop the iceberg flipping.

I genuinely wish to not just keep abortion accessible and legal where is already is (or was in some states), I’d like it to expand to countries where at present it is illegal. I don’t believe that can be achieved by doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.

Wages can be garnished.

I love this US terminology.

I always imagine a bit of parsley on top.

I may be remembering wrong, but I recall several conversations about my father’s salary being garnished early on in my parents’ divorce. IIRC that is what eventually happened. It was taken direct from his net income before he received what was left. That was in the U.K. in the mid-late 80s.

I had visions of parsley too, which is why it stuck in my memory.

The Court is trying to push the decision back onto the legislators - that is part of the doctrine of ‘originalism’. They believe that Legislators, as the elected body (so can be voted out if citizens don’t like the legislation they pass), should pass the law and not leave it up to the Courts (who are appointed Judges and beyond the reach of citizens) to create policy.
Ie Obama could have codified Roe - but said it was "not my highest legislative priority," once elected, presumably because of fear of voter backlash.

Catholicism is tangential, not because of religion per se, but because Catholics tend to practice Originalist not Activist jurisprudence.

Wrong on all counts.

It's the US, of course it's white evangelical churches that are the cause of this.

It's not the government, it's the Supreme Court, which is political to a ridiculous degree which shouldn't be allowed.

The court action suggested by the op won't work though, I don't think. I would love it to happen though and I've been a Christian most of my life.

It's a nice idea but doesn't seem realistic.

The Satanic Temple are currently suing Texas saying that abortion is a religious ritual. 'Mon the Satanists!

Last I checked it was the government who made laws not churches. YABU.

Evidence please?

I think it’s kind of cute that all the European woman are jumping onto this cause to fly the flag for women’s rights. Are you doing as much for women in Afghanistan

I agree to some extent, I don't quite know why the US is so important, given that the laws are as, if not more, restrictive in certain European countries including Malta and Poland. I guess we're scared that where the US leads, the UK (and maybe some other European countries) will follow.

I think it’s kind of cute that all the European woman are jumping onto this cause to fly the flag for women’s rights. Are you doing as much for women in Afghanistan

Its because the UK and US are both Anglo-American legal systems based on common law/stare decisis/judicial precedent. Most other countries, with some notable exceptions, are either civil or Sharia/Islamic law based or other local systems.

So England in particular shares the ability to make law by judicial decision, which makes it resonant that the US has decided to overrule a long standing judicial precedent affecting the human right of bodily autonomy, which is very well established in Europe (again with some notable and controversial exceptions which are also much discussed).

@Boxowine

Another to highlight this. Thanks PP.

It's not the Mormon church. It's the FLDS church headed by a polygamist clown.
Don't taint the Mormons with that.

Also yeah, evidence?

@TomPinch
You want one link? For the multiple churches operating in fifty different states?
Why don't you start by googling the phrase"bleed the beast" used by Mormons to describe the practice of claiming benefits for multiple wives and children.

Why don't you look at Gov Bullard of Idaho's remarks while signing Idaho"s anti abortion law where he talks about the state needing to make plans for the increase in babies, surely if the intent is to support the mother's the plan would be to provide them with the financial support they will need to raise their children, and if those systems already exist then all they have to do is increase the funding.

Why does the Dobbs ruling reference the domestic availability of infants? If their decision is based on strict interpretation of the Constitution, why does adoption come into it all. Adoption isn't mentioned in the constitution, it shouldn't be a factor either for or against.

Why did SCOTUS recently rule that Christian adoption agencies that receive federal funding (and if you think these agencies are operating from congregant donations, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you) can discriminate against applicants when placing babies? If they are operating with federal funds due to the absence of a suitable government agency, then they are the de facto government agency. So why are they allowed to use their religion when placing children.

Excellent post, @SwapPlaces.

Reminders of reality are a breath of fresh air on threads like this.

It is an outright stated goal by multiple denominations to secure government funding to support their charitable endeavors and that they will expand these endeavors to accommodate an increased birthrate driven by the reversal of Roe vs Wade.

This is why SCOTUS recently ruled that religious adoption agencies can discriminate while using government funds

This is why SCOTUS recently ruled that states can't refuse to fund religious schools with tuition waivers.

This is why states have been allowed to shunt federal funds meant for health care to church run "crisis pregnancy centers" that don't provide medical care

This is why many of the states with the most stringent anti abortion laws are paradoxically also the states that refused to expand Medicaid. There are no plans for them to increase benefits for poor women and children, except through private non profits.

All of these things are happening in tandem with one another and it is all be design. The financial implications are only one aspect of the political and cultural powers that come into play.

Bloody hell, it's QAnon all over again 😕

The United States is a country without a strong social services safety net, especially in a cohesive national sense. So, no NHS although there is an enormous federal expenditure in health care.

Every state receives federal funding and then spends it differently (there are guidelines). Sometimes, if there is no state facility or agency, the funding may go to a non profit that will provide a particular service such as medical care, or homelessness.

Prior to George W Bush's presidency, there was a separation between church and state, religious charities could not receive federal funding and they existed on their own fund raising. That doctrine has been overturned, based on religious groups suing the US government with the argument that separation between church and state is not explicitly stated in the constitution.

A good example would be the Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility in Texas that received a government contract to house 1300 detained migrant children. Why would the Baptist church seek to be involved in such an endeavor? What kind of money is involved in a 1300 bed facility? Seems like a large scale operation and one best suited for a government entity.

If abortion were outlawed in the UK tomorrow, whatever increases in government aid would mostly be funnelled directly to the mothers and children. Your apparatus is already in place. In the US the opposite is true and not only the social service systems are not in place but also the impetus to support single mothers does not exist.

This does sound rather like Qanon although I'm not sure quite in what way.

@TomPinch
Qanon is right wing conspiracy group fueled by mass hysteria. It works because it speaks to a common fear about child sexual abuse.

Making up batshit stories about basements in pizza parlors and all the rest of it is promoting paranoid delusions. But having a conversation about safeguarding concerns in the wake of the Boy Scouts of America sexual abuse scandal or the USA Gymnastics scandal is not. That would be an analysis of actual events.

That's an analogy, btw.

I don't think that you understand very much about fundamentalist churches in the US. Either their power and dominance in rural areas or their financial pictures. I read your story about the person insisting the church in your town had the money and wouldn't believe otherwise. To that I counter with the story of Joel Osteen's megachurch in Houston having a plumber find 600,000 dollars in cash stuffed behind the walls in the restroom. I won't give you a link though, you can look it up.

I know you want a piece of evidence to prove these intentions. Why? If you lived here you would know that it's not a secret. It's openly discussed at every right to life rally, every call in radio show, every religious group's position on the matter is that there are living homes waiting to adopt these babies. You're just mad that I'm saying that they expect to get paid for it and that expectation is aligned with their current operations.

Did you see the fruit loops outside the courts singing 'Jesus loves the children'.... I mean a foetus isn't a child they really believe that they have the right to decide what a woman does with her body. Religious nut jobs most of the ban abortion brigade. America has a lot of them too.

I don't suppose many on Mumsnet will remember pre 1967 when Abortion was illegal, many women's lives were ruined because they were forced to go through with unwanted pregnancies and more or less forced to have their babies adopted. Not only that many women resorted to back street abortionist's, a lady we knew died because of a botched abortion of this sort.

Nobody should tell a woman she must go through 9 months of pregnancy against her will, her body her choice.

I just don't understand this. It seems completely devoid of any common sense. The world is overpopulated and getting more so day by day. War and natural disasters are cutting down the food supply. Why do we need more babies?

How many couples are there desperate to adopt? Over here, people are giving up on pets because of the cost of medical care and food. Why would you want lots of extra mouths to feed?

And if people want the 'right' kind of babies, isn't surrogacy a thing in the US? (Don't think this is healthy either, but forcing rape victims to give birth and women to raise very disabled children is horrendous).

I cannot believe many of the unplanned children will be adopted. Many will be handed to the state as "unwanted humans". Now that scares me. More cannon fodder, more prey for predators - and potential sources of blood and plasma for extending the lives of the rich. (Mainstream newspaper dropped a crashing hint about Murdoch's extended lifespan).

How about I won’t tar all atheists with the same brush (I am thinking of Richard Dawkins saying it’s immoral to continue with a pregnancy if the foetus has Down’s Syndrome) if you do the same for Christians.
There are plenty of Christians who support abortion. There are plenty of Christian doctors who perform them.
There are plenty of atheists who are against abortions and protest outside clinics.

Joe Biden is Catholic and in favour of abortion choices.