Good morning! Welcome to The Movement from NOTICE News, where we envision a world that’s driven by human decency, compassion and love—not corporate greed and growth. We’re news for the people, not the profit. 🌹

In today’s newsletter:

• The Alabama state Supreme Court makes a chilling ruling

• One school board wants the National Guard called in

• John Oliver makes a tempting offer to Clarence Thomas

• And some good news for people who hate gerrymandering

⏱️ Estimated read time: 4.8 minutes.

In first, Alabama Supreme Court declares frozen embryos are ‘unborn children’

Republicans’ war on women continues. In what’s being called a “chilling legal first,” the Alabama state Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are children, and that those who destroy them can be held civilly liable. Critics fear the ruling could upend in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the hundreds of thousands of people who depend on it every year.

The case stems from an incident in 2020 when a patient at a fertility clinic in Mobile accidentally dropped and destroyed other couples’ frozen embryos. Those couples filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful death—and after working its way through the appeals system—the state’s highest court ruled such a case could proceed.

Defying both science and logic, the court ruled that the frozen embryos were “unborn children,” and thus protected by both state law and the state’s constitution. The justice writing the opinion even managed to inject toxic, fundamentalist theology into the court’s official ruling, writing, “even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing His glory.” So much for separation of church and state.

Reproductive rights groups fear the ruling could have ripple effects nationwide. Aside from jeopardizing IVF treatment options, the ruling could also have implications for contraceptives. The ruling came on the same day word leaked that Donald Trump secretly supports a nationwide 16-week ban on safe abortions. 

Meanwhile, corporate-sponsored Democrats seem more eager to use safe abortion healthcare as a “get out the vote” tactic than actually moving to protect women’s rights. Notably, they refused calls from Progressive Democrats to impeach at least two Supreme Court justices for lying under oath about overturning Roe. 

Violence at this school is so bad, the school board wants National Guard called in

Well, we’ve hit another new low in the “greatest country in the world.” Yesterday four members of the Brockton, Mass., school board asked their town’s mayor to request assistance from the U.S. National Guard to help control the violence at the town’s high school.

Brockton High School, which is about 40 minutes south of Boston, is one of the nation’s largest high schools, with close to 4,000 students. School board members say violence and drug abuse there is out of control. Earlier this month, teachers and students publicly demanded change after a fight video from the school went viral. In May, three students were hospitalized and five others arrested after a stabbing took place outside the school.