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Kansas citizens rejected a pro-life amendment — known as the “Value Them Both” amendment — during their state’s primary election Tuesday. The referendum represented the first major statewide vote on abortion following the overturning of Roe v Wade. The amendment needed a simple majority to pass. It would have reversed the Kansas Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling that the state’s constitution protects a woman’s right to abortion. Currently, state lawmakers are, in most cases, prohibited from passing any type of abortion restriction. The amendment would have enabled state lawmakers to pass legislation to regulate or restrict abortion, and did not propose a total ban on abortion.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251946/kansas-abortion-vote-pro-life-amendment-fails-in-first-post-roe-vote
Pope Francis said Wednesday that Canada is in the process of “writing a new page” in the relationship between the Catholic Church and indigenous peoples. Speaking during his general audience in Vatican City on August 3, the pope said that his pastoral visit to Canada last week was “a different journey” from the other 36 international trips of his pontificate. The pope told the crowd that his main motivation for the trip to Canada was to be close to the indigenous peoples and "to ask for forgiveness … for the harm done to them by those Christians, including many Catholics, who in the past collaborated in the forced assimilation and enfranchisement policies of the governments of the time.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251947/pope-francis-canada-is-writing-a-new-page-in-church-s-relationship-with-indigenous-peoples
The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Idaho, seeking to block the state’s trigger law which will ban abortions — with a few exceptions — beginning August 25. Announcing the lawsuit in an August 2 press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the DOJ is suing the state because of a supposed conflict with a federal law that requires hospitals to provide stabilizing treatment to a person experiencing a medical emergency, regardless of their ability to pay. The lawsuit is the first legal challenge brought by the federal government against a state abortion restriction since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June, returning the question of abortion policy to the states. Garland asserted that Idaho's law will prevent doctors from performing abortions when the mother's life is at risk, despite the Idaho’s law providing an exception to the ban if the abortion was, in the physician’s judgement, “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.” The DOJ is seeking to block Idaho’s law from taking effect.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251944/us-department-of-justice-challenges-idaho-abortion-ban-in-court
Today, the Church celebrates Saint Nicodemus, a secret disciple of Jesus. As a member of the Sanhedrin, he would meet Jesus by night so that the others would not see him with Jesus. Eventually, it was Nicodemus who reminded the Sanhedrin that Jesus had the right to a trial. Together with Saint Joseph of Arimathea, he prepared Jesus' body and placed him in the tomb. Tradition holds that Saint Nicodemus was martyred, though no record remains.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-nicodemus-552