The right wing has found the perfect judge to ban the safe and effective abortion pill.
Confidence in the Supreme Court has plummeted since the conservative courts packed their bags during the Trump years. polls show. But look deeper: the staff and the goings-on in some of the lower federal courts shouldn’t inspire confidence either. And the consequences of judges’ decisions in those dozens of courtrooms can be as wide-ranging as those of the Supreme.
Case in point: the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas, where Wednesday hearing the single judge in the vast outlying district was considering whether to ban—nationwide—the abortion pill, which is used in more than half of all abortions in the country, including miscarriages. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kachmari could decide to grant that preliminary injunction as early as this week, effectively outlawing birth control pills even in states where abortion is legal, while a lawsuit challenging the drug’s safety ends.
Whatever your opinion on abortion, you should be stunned by this lawsuit. It has been over 20 years and countless dosages since the Food and Drug Administration tested and approved mifepristone as part of a two-drug abortion regimen. Since then, the agency has repeatedly confirmed it, and thousands of medical data have confirmed its safety.
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Jackie Culms
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At Kaczmarik’s hearing, the anti-abortion activists who brought the case admitted that a court order to withdraw a long-approved drug from the market would be unprecedented.
And yet… anti-abortion groups who doubt that FDA scientists have reason to be optimistic that Kasmari will side with them. In the end, they personally chose this judge to hear their suit, as other conservative activists did during his four years in the dock, because of his obvious sympathy for their cause.
For right-wing “forum buyers” Kachmarik one of the favourites.
Like many others elected by former President Trump to the federal bench, he is white, male, young—only 39 when appointed to a lifetime position to rule for decades—and reliable, radical, conservative. He joined the Federalist Society in law school and worked on Republican campaigns in Texas, including for a senator. Ted Cruz, and came to federal court straight from the Christian “religious freedom” legal team, First Institute of Liberty.
Like his staunch anti-abortion sister recently said Washington Post on her older brother’s role in the abortion pill case: “I feel like he was made for this. He’s exactly where he needs to be.”
Trump thought exactly that. Spurred on by evangelical supporters, the Federalist Society and the equally right-wing Heritage Foundation, the former president had to nominate Kaczmarik three times within three years before the Republican-controlled Senate finally confirmed him in a secret ballot. Kachmarik’s views turned out to be almost excessive even for some Republicans.
His assertion hearings demonstrated not only his anti-abortion propaganda, but also his views on LGBT people. mental disorders and that the legalization of same-sex marriage would put the nation “in path to potential tyranny“. He wrote that the “marriage movement” – which advocates marriage between a man and a woman – should follow the example of the opponents of Roe v. Rowe. Wade: Play the long game and fight for “win the case after 40 yearsto restore “traditional marriage”.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Kaczmarik is reportedly holding dummy Clarence Thomas on his desk. Judge Thomas, parallel with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Decision Overturns Rowe Last June, he proposed that the Supreme Court also “overhaul” constitutional protections for same-sex marriage, same-sex intimacy and contraception.
Kachmari started twice rules against President Biden’s efforts to end Trump’s “Stay in Mexico” policy towards asylum seekers. He also turned down a federal program to provide contraceptives to teens., they say it violates the rights of parents. And he shot down Biden’s policy that medical professionals cannot discriminate against LGBTQ people, despite a Supreme Court ruling that the anti-discrimination law applies to these groups. Kachmari began his negative opinion by citing Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr.’s disagreement with the ruling.
But it was the abortion pill that caused the most controversy. That’s right: it highlights how radical the turn the nation has taken on women’s reproductive rights has been after half a century of Roe’s constitutional protection.
With Dobbs’ ruling, the Supreme Court returned abortion law to the states, “the people’s elected representatives,” Alito wrote. Agreeing with this, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh stated that the judges would no longer decide “these complex moral and political questions”.
What was what conservatives have been calling their holy grail for decades: let the states decide. Indeed, the red states were quick to impose a near total ban. According to the Guttmacher Institute, which campaigns for abortion rights.which tracks US abortion laws, 24 states have or are likely to introduce such bans (some of which are being challenged in court).
But now anti-abortion activists want more – a national ban. Not hoping to get such a law from a Democratic president and a divided Congress, they again turned to the federal courts for the next best thing: a nationally swaying ordinance banning medical abortion. Here are the predictions of Alito and Cavanaugh.
Reports from Wednesday’s hearing showed that Kaczmarik, true to form, was looking for a way to support the anti-abortion plaintiffs. If he does decide that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and medical professionals have been wrong about mifepristone for nearly 23 years, you can bet he will be upheld in court. the ultra-conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Texas. The case then goes to the Supreme Court. We know which way he leans.
And judges wonder why they have a record high 58% disapproval rating, why so many Americans have come to the conclusion that the judiciary is more ideological than impartial, and no less political than the other two branches of government.
It’s simple: these days the judicial system is often like that.