SUMMARY: At least 43 people, including over a dozen children, have died in catastrophic flooding in Kerr County, Texas, triggered by torrential rains. One victim was eight-year-old Sarah Marsh from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who died while attending a Christian camp. Sarah was a student at Cherokee Bend Elementary, and her loss has deeply affected her family, school, and community. Local officials and leaders, including Mountain Brook’s mayor and Senator Katie Britt, have expressed their sorrow. Neighbors recall Sarah fondly, noting her favorite color was blue, symbolized by blue ribbons in the community. The Marsh family is grieving privately amid overwhelming sadness.

Young Mountain Brook girl among those killed in Texas flooding

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by Sofia Resnick, Alabama Reflector
July 5, 2025

Despite heading one of the oldest anti-abortion organizations in the country at a time of huge upheaval for abortion rights, John Mize is new to the movement.

The father of four became the CEO of Americans United for Life in January 2024. Previously he worked for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, after more than a decade in the for-profit health care sector. Mize said he didn’t grow up in what’s traditionally known as the “pro-life” movement, but he was drawn to this position because of his Christian faith and his involvement in the foster care community.

“My wife and I have been foster parents for like a decade; we’ve had a lot of kids in our house,” Mize said. “I come from very humble origins. My mom was pregnant with me, and my biological father cheated and left her with two little boys and me, and she chose to give me life.”

AUL is older than its CEO by more than a decade, founded two years before the U.S. Supreme Court established federal abortion rights in Roe v. Wade in 1973. The organization published legal strategy on how to reverse Roe through the courts, while steadily helping to pass and then defend hundreds of state laws that incrementally affixed regulations and gestational limits to pregnancy termination, making abortion increasingly harder to access. Currently, AUL is pushing restrictions on medication abortion at the federal and state level. Mize previously told States Newsroom that when he interviewed for the position at AUL he talked about using insurance claims data to research harms of medication abortion.

The organization’s dominant message is that women are victims of abortion and are preyed on by organizations that provide abortion, like Planned Parenthood. In its catalog of anti-abortion model legislation, AUL has a section called “Defunding Abortion.” The group filed an amicus brief in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, in which the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that Medicaid patients don’t have the right to sue to see the doctor of their choice. The decision will allow South Carolina, and likely other states, to exclude from government health programs any reproductive health clinic that also offers abortion. At issue in the case, South Carolina’s governor had removed abortion clinics from its list of Medicaid providers, but the services covered were not related to abortion. Reproductive health advocates expect far-reaching impacts from the decision, combined with proposed cuts affecting reproductive health clinics in the federal reconciliation bill still working its way through Congress. 

“Now, more states can move forward with their plans to defund Planned Parenthood,” Mize wrote in an email newsletter after the Medina decision.

Going into the third year that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization’s widespread effects ripple throughout the country, Mize said AUL would continue incrementally pushing state and federal policies that make abortions harder to provide and access. Mize said AUL is also eager to help pass a bipartisan federal bill to help fund birth costs. When it comes to some of the reported consequences of Dobbs, like miscarriage treatment denials, Mize said some clarity in laws are likely needed. But he, like other leaders and doctors who oppose abortion, believe it is the responsibility of medical associations like the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) to create state-specific guidelines around abortion bans.

“Clinicians should be 100% protected in providing miscarriage care,” Mize said. “If it’s an area where there is still ambiguity, I would think the medical societies would be the best place to go to help clear up that ambiguity.”

ACOG has published post-Dobbs guidelines, including guidance on health exceptions in abortion bans, which says “the practice of medicine … cannot be distilled down to a one-page document or list that is generalizable for every situation,” and encourages doctors to focus on a patient’s individual circumstances over a state’s law. ACOG has also published questions for hospitals systems and guidance addressing prelabor rupture of membranes (PROM) and when abortion care might become necessary.

In an emailed statement, an ACOG spokesperson said, “ACOG cannot and does not provide legal advice to its members. ACOG’s clinical guidance is based on scientific evidence and data, and science does not change based on state laws.”

This interview with Mize was edited for brevity and clarity.

States Newsroom: How would you characterize this period since Dobbs?

John Mize: I would say there’s been significant wins. There’s been significant setbacks. It’s a much more complicated world than it was. Certainly I don’t believe that Dobbs resolved the issue. I think the best thing that came out of Dobbs, from our perspective, is that there’s not a constitutional right to abortion, but now we’re in this very complex world where you have different states that have different populations and popular support for different laws.

SN: The stories of women that have come out having been denied miscarriage care, do you recognize that as a problem, as a consequence of these state bans?

JM: Yeah … any potential ambiguity needs to be flushed out if it hasn’t already, stripping away as much as possible the agendas on both sides.

The laws are not super complicated across the country. There’s no law that should prosecute a woman for a D&C. There’s no law that disallows a woman that is having a miscarriage from receiving treatment. Now, with that being said, there might be confusion at the clinic level, and that’s where the guidance from medical societies is really important. And they’re not providing that guidance. So, I point the finger, largely at medical societies, like ACOG, for example, not providing really clear guidance about what the law says, even though the laws, again, the law’s not super complicated. In Texas, for example, I think it’s like a couple of paragraphs. It’s very clear what the law says.

[Editor’s note: After Texas banned abortion, dozens of women testified that their medically necessary abortions were delayed or denied, and at least three women died. This year the legislature passed a clarification to the law called the Life of the Mother Act, which allows abortion if the pregnant woman has a“life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” The law notes that “a life-threatening physical condition is not necessarily one actively injuring the patient.”]

SN: Americans United for Life helps write laws that implicate people’s health care, implicate people’s medical treatments. … ACOG was not pushing for these kinds of laws, but you want ACOG to be the ones to try to help states understand them. But at the end of the day, a lot of these abortion bans were not really written by medical providers, right?

JM: I think if you believe that elective abortion is not a medical necessity, then your opinion is going to be a lot different than if you do believe that it’s a medical necessity. And so we hold a very strong opinion that it’s not a medical necessity, that it’s elective. And because of that, honoring the dignity of human life in the womb changes our opinion significantly in that regard, because then it becomes an ethical issue and a moral issue, and more than a healthcare issue.

SN: I’ve been talking to some of the organizations and activists that track pregnancy criminalization, like Pregnancy Justice. … And there have been a couple of these cases where pregnancy outcomes have resulted in charges — they’re not necessarily charged under abortion bans, but the thesis is that with the escalation of abortion bans, more prosecutors are emboldened to charge women for their outcomes. Even if they’re not charging them for the death of the fetus, they’re charging them for something.

JM: I absolutely loathe the idea of prosecuting women, even women that have had abortions. I don’t feel like we are in any sort of capacity to make an assumption as to why a woman has gotten an abortion. In fact, we should be doing the opposite of persecuting. We should be offering to provide post-abortive support services for that woman, because, again, you don’t know what’s happened. She could have been coerced. She could have been forced to have an abortion. She could be absolutely in a very difficult financial situation.

SN: How do you think that AUL has helped people who might have chosen abortion because of their finances or because they were in a domestic or abusive situation, or all the reasons that people choose abortion? How do you think in these past three years, AUL has helped more people avoid abortion and have their babies?

JM: I mean, you look at states that have implemented good pro-life policy, and I think you do see a decrease in the abortive rate.

[National abortion rates have increased since Dobbs, according to abortion-rights organizations like the Guttmacher Institute and the Society of Family Planning, but there are record rates of patients traveling to other states for abortion, as well as accessing abortion medication via telemedicine.]

And, I think it’s policies like Make Birth Free that are super important, and we need to be doing more of them. We also were very active in the extension of the Child Tax Credit. I’m a firm believer in the baby bonus. And the next thing I’d love to begin addressing, from a policy perspective, is, how can we further encourage marriage.

[Make Birth Free refers to a policy recommendation from AUL, which alongside groups like ACOG has endorsed a bipartisan bill in Congress that would require private health insurance companies to fully cover the costs of childbirth and related maternity care.]

SN: With Make Birth Free, what do you see the prospects of that passing?

JM: I think there’s a lot of momentum. We’ve got to get through this big bill and reconciliation, and I think that the attention is going to be drawn to what’s next. This is bipartisan. It has some really big names backing it, and I know there’s an effort in the House to move legislation, as well. So, as they run up to the midterms, they’re going to be looking for things that they can say, “Hey, we were bipartisan, we’re helping families.” So I think there’s actually an opportunity to get this piece of legislation passed.

SN: When it comes to the One Big Beautiful Bill and some of the projected cuts to Medicaid and some of the moves with Title X, what do you think about that in terms of the goals of trying to make it easier for people to have babies when they want to?

JM: Certainly I believe that Medicaid reform is absolutely needed. I have two children on Medicaid. I have a child with a disability, and I have a child that we adopted from foster care. And unfortunately, the way that the reimbursement structure is established from the Affordable Care Act, healthy individuals who are enrolled into Medicaid are reimbursed at a much higher level from the federal government than my daughter and my son, and so there’s an incentive to enroll healthy, able-bodied adults into Medicaid. That to me, that’s where we need to solve the problem, and in fact, I think in doing so, that will vastly increase the benefits for people that really do need Medicaid.

SN: How do you feel about the so-called abortion abolitionist movement?

JM: This idea that we should abolish all abortion; not only is it not very realistic, I think it doesn’t follow where the public is right now.

When the pendulum swings too fast, one way or the other, it will tack back, and that’s something at AUL, we’ve always been incremental in nature, and we don’t believe in getting ahead of public sentiment that would put this country in a position where it’s not ready for, for example, a constitutional amendment on life. Just like I would argue a portion of the country was never ready for Roe, a portion of the country would never be ready for the opposite. 

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

The post Anti-abortion leader argues US was not ready for Roe or Dobbs decisions appeared first on alabamareflector.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Right-Leaning

This article presents a clear right-leaning bias by focusing on the perspective and activities of Americans United for Life (AUL), a prominent anti-abortion organization. The language emphasizes the organization’s goals to restrict abortion access and portrays abortion providers like Planned Parenthood negatively. It highlights pro-life policies and the CEO’s Christian faith, fostering a sympathetic view toward anti-abortion efforts. While the article includes some contextual information about abortion-rights groups and medical associations, the framing and emphasis primarily support conservative, pro-life positions, reflecting a right-leaning ideological stance.

SUMMARY: Huntsville’s Independence Day celebration at Mid City featured a packed crowd enjoying a full day of festivities, including live music, sparklers, and family-friendly activities at Hollow Park. Attendees, some traveling from as far as St. Louis, Missouri, shared that it’s a growing tradition to gather peacefully with family and friends. The highlight was a spectacular 25-minute fireworks show that wrapped up the evening, creating lasting memories. Despite the large turnout, the festive atmosphere continued as people prepared to leave, with ongoing music and anticipation of heavy traffic as the event concluded.

Today is Independence Day, and people all over the Tennessee Valley spent the afternoon celebrating.

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