Thomas M. Messner, J.D.
Senior Fellow In Legal PolicyThomas Messner, J.D., is Senior Fellow in Legal Policy at CLI where he researches and writes on issues involving life and conscience. Messner earned his law degree from Notre Dame Law School and his Bachelor of Arts degree from Grove City College in Pennsylvania. After law school, Messner clerked for Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit, and practiced law in Washington, D.C. Previously Messner served as a Visiting Fellow in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, where he researched and wrote about religious liberty and other issues.
Research Authored
Charlotte Lozier Institute Submits Brief in Hobby Lobby Case
Charlotte Lozier Institute submitted a “friend of the court” brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of abortion-related conscience rights. The Court recently heard arguments in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood religious freedom cases and will decide those cases later this year.
Federal Court Upholds Arkansas Heartbeat Testing Requirement
On Friday a federal district court in Arkansas upheld the Arkansas heartbeat testing requirement. The heartbeat testing requirement provides that abortions in Arkansas shall not be performed before testing whether the unborn child possesses a detectible heartbeat.
Supreme Court Will Review Abortion Drug Cases
Today the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will review two cases where the government is trying to force Christian-owned businesses to provide health care coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs.
Twenty-Week Bans Raise Issue of Disability Discrimination Abortion
This paper examines how laws limiting abortion after twenty weeks can have the effect of prohibiting disability discrimination in the womb.
Federal Appeals Court Upholds Kentucky’s Informed Consent Ultrasound Law
On April 4, 2019 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld Kentucky’s “Ultrasound Informed Consent Act,” also known as House Bill 2 (“H.B. 2”). The opinion draws heavily from the 2018 Supreme Court ruling in the NIFLA v. Becerra pregnancy help center case. In upholding Kentucky’s ultrasound informed consent law, the Sixth Circuit delivers an important victory for one of the great public policy achievements of the pro-life and pro-woman movement.