As ThinkProgress’s Marie Diamond reported last week, the extreme anti-abortion group Personhood USA is making headway in GOP-led state legislatures across the country with efforts to turn abortion — and even forms of birth control — into “the legal equivalent of homicide.” While consistently faltering in Colorado, it seems the Personhood movement has a firm grip on Alabama, Mississippi, Georiga, Texas, Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and now — Louisiana.

Today, the Louisiana House will debate a bill that would make abortion “a prosecutable crime for doctors who perform” a constitutionally-protected service or prescribe drugs with the intent of ending a pregnancy. Originally planning to prosecute women as well, the bill — introduced by state Rep. John Labruzzo (R) — now allows for medical exceptions but no exception for rape or incest. Labruzzo, who once suggested sterilizing poor women to lower welfare costs, was joined by a Personhood USA lawyer in a recent committee hearing to defend his radical efforts.

During the hearing, a fellow lawmaker noted LaBruzzo’s bill will have “unintended consequences when we do that broad brush” and questioned whether the bill would cause a “dramatic decrease on the abortion rate.” Sitting beside the Personhood lawyer, LaBruzzo dismissed her concerns and launched into a comparison between reproductive rights and drug abuse. To him, a woman who seeks an abortion is just like a heroin addict:

LABRUZZO: I can assure you if abortion is illegal, it will have a dramatic decrease in the number of abortions that take place. Now the opponents in the opposition argue that whether we make it illegal or not, people are going to get abortions. Well, we’ve illegalized [sic] murder and drugs for a long long time, and yet those crimes continue to take place. And it’s not our stance here to say that “just because people smoke pot and break the law or use heroin and break the law, then we should legalize it.” There are many who say we should. But we don’t agree, we don’t think so. We think it’s wrong and it’s best to keep it illegal…This is the pro-life bill. And I think you’d be in a difficult situation if you voted against this bill and tried to convince everybody that you are ardently pro-life.

Watch it courtesy of the Florida Independent:

But LaBruzzo is not the only right-wing representative in Louisiana’s anti-abortion game. Last week, a Senate committee passed state Rep. Frank Hoffman’s (R) bill that would further imperil woman’s access to health care by allowing anti-choice health care providers to summarily reject providing any kind of abortion service even if the woman’s health is at stake. In 2009, Louisiana passed a law allowing any health care provider to refuse abortion-related services if it “violates his conscience to the extent that patient access to health care is not compromised.” Hoffman’s bill would eliminate “the qualifier that a medical professional’s decision cannot threaten patient’s right to care.”

As Planned Parenthood’s Julie Mickelberry noted, the bill could “go well beyond abortion” and end up denying women access to birth control, “both conventional prescriptions and emergency contraception.” Under this bill, gynecologists could refuse to prescribe birth control, pharmacists could refuse to fill legal prescriptions for such birth control. Such refusals, Mickelberry adds, would be particularly harmful to “women in rural areas with limited health care options or fro women, regardless of where they live, whose insurance allows limited office visits.”

On Wednesday the Eleventh Circuit will become the third court of appeals to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit challenging the landmark Affordable Care Act. Although the legal significance of a case has very little to do with the identity of the parties, this case is likely to be one of the most closely watched ACA cases because its plaintiffs include more than two dozen Republican state officials acting on behalf of their states, and because the case against the ACA — weak though it may be — will be argued by conservative superlawyer Paul Clement.

The three judge panel hearing the case includes Chief Judge Joel Dubina, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Clinton-appointed Judges Frank Hull and Stanley Marcus. Court-watchers, however, should be  cautious about reading too much into this panel because of its apparent partisan makeup. Judges Hull and Marcus are both compromise nominees Clinton selected in order to overcome obstruction from the Republican-controlled Senate — indeed, Judge Marcus is a Republican who was previously appointed to a federal district court by Ronald Reagan. Dubina’s partisan credentials might be a bit more secure, as his daughter is a GOP congresswoman who voted to repeal the ACA.

Nevertheless, it is unlikely that this panel will take the same Cee Lo Green attitude towards President Obama’s greatest legislative accomplishment that Judge Roger Vinson took in the court below. Vinson is the only judge in America to toss out the entire Affordable Care Act because he objects to just one provision — and he based his analysis of this question on a brief submitted by an anti-gay hate group. His opinion includes an entirely gratuitous nod to the Tea Party, and a Center For American Progress examination of his opinion identified at least 40 factual and legal errors. Because Vinson went so far out of his way to flag his Tea Party sympathies he could wind up spooking the Eleventh Circuit panel more than he stands to convince them to strike down the law.

ThinkProgress also spoke to several former Eleventh Circuit law clerks who believe that, while this panel does lean right, the ACA is unlikely to receive the same kneejerk opposition in the court of appeals that it received from Judge Vinson. Two former law clerks emphasized that Judge Marcus is a judicial minimalist who will not want to reach the constitutional merits unless he absolutely has to — and these lawsuits will have to overcome at least four procedural barriers before a court will be allowed to reach the merits. Both of the courts of appeals to hear challenges to the ACA have suggested that they may dismiss the case on procedural grounds, and even ultra-conservative Judge Jeffrey Sutton dropped hints last week that he may not be able to strike down the law.

One former clerk also pointed out that, while Hull has a reputation as a conservative, she earned this reputation largely based on her very conservative decisions in criminal and individual rights cases — cases where the conservative position is also the pro-government position. In cases seeking to limit Congress’ authority to regulate, all three of the panel’s judges have rejected conservative claims that a federal law exceeds Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. In other words, Hull’s record is consistent with that of a very conservative judge, but it is also consistent with that of a judicial minimalist such as Judge Marcus.

So the bottom line is that the Affordable Care Act will go to court Wednesday in front of a fairly conservative panel. At the same time, however, the case against the ACA is hindered by procedural barriers, an exceptionally weak district court opinion, and a panel that may be more inclined towards minimalism than towards the kind of maximalist judicial activism that drives this litigation. If Wednesday’s panel votes to uphold the law, that will be a very good sign that the law is on safe ground moving forward.

For years, the families of Colombians who were injured or killed by right-wing paramilitary death squads have sought accountability from banana producer Chiquita, which has admitted to paying off many of these militias.

Now, Florida-based U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra — a George W. Bush appointee — has ruled that lawsuits by these families will be allowed to move forward, rejecting the banana company’s request that the suits be thrown out:

A federal judge in Florida said Friday that lawsuits against Chiquita Brands International, filed by family members of thousands of Colombians who were tortured or killed by paramilitaries, will be allowed to go forward. [...]

Chiquita, which has admitted to making payments to paramilitaries, had asked for the suits to be dismissed, arguing it was a victim of extortion and has no responsibility for any crimes armed groups committed. But U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra denied the company’s request, allowing plaintiffs to move forward with claims for damages against the company for torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity. He granted Chiquita’s motion to dismiss claims for damages related to terrorism.

Chiquita previously faced a $25 million fine from the U.S. after being found to be delivering payments to the Colombian United Self-Defence Forces, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department.