#Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk

[mudwerks]

(via Judge Who Could Ban Abortion Pill Doesn't Want the Public to Know When the Hearing Is)

On Friday, federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk held a conference call with the lawyers involved in the case that could result in a national ban of the abortion drug mifepristone. He wanted to talk about the hearing that’s taking place this Wednesday in Amarillo, Texas, that may well end in him immediately banning the pill. Specifically, Kacsmaryk said he wanted to keep the hearing off the online public docket as long as possible “to try to minimize disruptions and possible protests,” the Washington Post reported, because “courthouse members have received threats in the wake of the lawsuit.”

he wants to make sure he can fuck over US women in the dark - without being so exposed...

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk - you’re gonna hear more about this “judge”

[not-safe-for-democracy]

It's hard to believe the year is 2023.

via IG: moveon (4/7/23)

[filosofablogger]

Connecting The Dots

What follows is a portion of Robert Hubbell’s newsletter from yesterday, looking back at last week and connecting the dots to see the broader picture. A Reflection On Last Week Robert E. Hubbell 10 April 2023 Tonight, I offer a reflection on last week—and a suggestion about how we must respond. We went into last week expecting the news to be dominated by Trump’s arraignment. It was—until the…

[kiramoore626]

Federal judge curtails protections for LGBTQ workers, trans kids in response to Texas lawsuit

Federal judge curtails protections for LGBTQ workers, trans kids in response to Texas lawsuit

Federal judge curtails protections for LGBTQ workers, trans kids in response to Texas lawsuit Ruling in a suit brought by Texas, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk vacated guidance on gender-affirming care for children and pronouns, dress and bathroom protections for LGBTQ workers.

[saywhat-politics]

The conservative federal judge in Texas cited a study of responses to subway ads in an order that could ban the abortion pill mifepristone nationwide.

New Yorkers boarding subways for their morning commute in 2010 were met with an unusual sight: anti-abortion advertisements, portraying a young, hip woman whose decision to terminate a pregnancy had unalterably marred her future.

“I thought life would be the way it was before,” the ads read, set against a somber portrait of the woman. “I wonder if there was something I could have done to help her,” another one said, showing a man looking solemnly at the floor.

The advertisements, which reportedly numbered 2,000 in the subway system alone in addition to billboards and print ads, all promoted the same website: AbortionChangesYou.com, which offers “healing” to those who’ve been “touched by abortion.” The site features a page where users are invited to read and anonymously write testimonials about the effects of terminating a pregnancy, such as “feeling far away from or angry toward God.”

The ads attracted some light vandalism but otherwise have largely been forgotten. Yet more than a decade after the subway ads began, a federal judge in Texas cited a linguistic analysis of those same website testimonials in a radical order that the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of the abortion pill mifepristone ― a safe and effective drug ― should be revoked.

“Women also perceive the harm to the informed-consent aspect of the physician-patient relationship,” wrote U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump nominee known for his anti-abortion views. He cited a study that found “fourteen percent of women and girls reported having received insufficient information” about the side effects of abortion and wrote that “Plaintiff physicians’ lack of pertinent information on chemical abortion harms their physician-patient relationships because they cannot receive informed consent from the women and girls they treat in their clinics.”

That 14% actually represented exactly 14 women who submitted testimonials to the AbortionChangesYou.com project, run by what was then called Life Perspectives and is now the Institute of Reproductive Grief Care.

[tomorrowusa]

Republicans, at least the ones who matter, are at war with democracy. Under Trump, they have taken off the masks.

Defeating Republicans by voting Democratic or for Democratic-leaning candidates is the only way to preserve democracy in the US. Last week the decisive defeat of a Trumpist Big Lie election denier was made possible, in part, by a high turnout of younger voters in Wisconsin.

[S]cores of down vest-wearing, smartphone-gazing students at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in a line that snaked around every corner of a campus building as they waited to cast a ballot for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

When the votes were tallied at the end of the night, some 883 people had cast ballots at the campus polling place — more than any other precinct in Eau Claire, and nearly six times as many as voted there in a similar election four years earlier. And 87% of the students had voted for Democrat Janet Protasiewicz — perhaps a rejection of her Republican opponent Dan Kelly’s lifelong opposition to abortion and his work trying to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

The surge in young-voter turnout was a key reason why Protasiewicz won a landslide, 11-point victory in a key swing state that Biden had only won by just over 20,000 votes three years earlier. 

The lesson is simple: if you don’t want authoritarian fundamentalist fanatics running your city/county/school district/state/country then vote in every election in high numbers to defeat them.

Of course the challenge is greater in places where the GOP has gerrymandered itself into a supermajority.

[T]ake a look around to Nashville, Tenn., where white GOP lawmakers stunned the nation by expelling two Black colleagues and disenfranchising their roughly 140,000 predominantly African American constituents because the men had, from the floor of the Capitol, joined a thousand or so young people protesting gun violence. (A white female Democrat who also protested kept her seat by one vote.)

The Tennessee expulsions, tinged with a racism that echoed from 1960s civil rights protests with deep roots in Nashville’s once-segregated lunch counters, showed America just how far Republicans are willing to go to hold power — by nullifying the votes of Black and brown voters and drowning out the voices of young people who thoroughly reject Republican dogma around AR-15 assault rifles, transgender athletes, or banning abortion.

Previous lack of sufficient interest by moderate to progressive voters had permitted democracy-hating Republicans to become entrenched in many places. Removing such people from power is going to be prolonged electoral trench warfare.

What’s more, this political counterrevolution in legislative corridors is taking place right as the conservative movement’s grand project of the last half-century — a ruthless, multimillion-dollar crusade to install unaccountable, lifetime right-wing judges across the federal bench — is coming to full fruition. Good Friday’s decision by Amarillo, Texas-based federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee rooted in ultraconservative networks, seeking to undo approval of the abortion drug mifepristone after 23 years on the market is a huge end run around democracy in a nation where a majority of voters support abortion rights. Conservatives routinely file lawsuits in Amarillo because Kacsmaryk is that district’s lone judge.

The next time somebody you know voices support for some ineffectual third-party presidential candidate, remind them of Donald Trump’s lifetime appointment of anti-abortion fanatic Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas.

Continuing with the metaphor of anti-democracy warfare...

Republicans are responding with an asymmetrical civil war against democracy, constantly looking for the weak points to deploy their IEDs of autocracy, determined to blow up the American Experiment if that’s what it takes to retain power by any means necessary. Their tactics are working well, unfortunately. Darth Vader’s Death Star had just one opening to exploit, but U.S. democracy has many — gerrymandering, the filibuster, the Electoral College, the undemocratic makeup of the U.S. Senate, statehouse power plays against home rule for Black or brown or progressive-minded communities, a take-no-prisoners hijacking of the judiciary. The only shock of Thursday’s next-level expulsion of two duly elected Black lawmakers in Nashville was the proof that — as Republican ideas become more unpopular — there is no bottom to how low this movement will go.

And the targeting of these two young Black activists — Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis — should have removed any lingering doubts around what the GOP’s war on democracy is ultimately all about: white power. 

The anti-democracy Republicans are well armed, that’s why we have to fight smart. They got Roe v. Wade overturned because they were persistent and patient. We need to steal patience and persistence from them.

And yet there is also reason for great hope. America’s young people — the ones who left their classrooms last week and overran the state capitol in Nashville to plead for real action against gun violence, the ones fighting book bans in their schools and speaking out for radical action on climate — are the bravest and boldest generation this nation has seen in some time. Their moral authority, and their rising power at the ballot box from Eau Claire to Memphis, is why a decrepit GOP is lashing out. History will surely remember what happened in Tennessee as an affront to democracy — and the last throes of a dying movement.

The GOP is very much like Putin and his clique of sycophants. They like to talk tough, but when seriously challenged in conflict they show themselves to be weaker than the image they like to project.

[wilwheaton]

I was just thinking: I have too many rights. We’ve got to cull, cull, cull! Do I really need to be voting and controlling my own body? That feels like much too much. Also, it’s spring! What better time to go through all the rights and see which ones spark joy (access to assault weapons) and which ones don’t (uncensored proximity to books, bodily autonomy). Just like they’re doing in Florida! Constitution? Please! If we were all meant to be covered by it, we would have been explicitly included! Isn’t all this rights nonsense getting in the way of more important things, like the ability of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to consider exciting hypotheticals not borne out by science: What if a drug that has been proven safe for decades … weren’t? Plus, millions of Americans have been given the gift of learning the name Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, most often used in the sentence, “Wait, Judge Kacsmaryk can undo the FDA approval of a drug used safely by millions for 20-plus years just … because?” It was good that the 5th Circuit did not need to think about the people most impacted by the decision to overturn Food and Drug Administration approval. After all, we’re not really people! If we were supposed to be people, we wouldn’t have uteruses. Clearly, I have been addled by having too many rights, too much autonomy. All the voting had gone to my head. I see that now.

Alexandra Petri: Great abortion pill ruling, 5th Circuit! I felt too much like a person.

[rapeculturerealities]

Supreme Court will decide access to key abortion drug mifepristone - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/13/abortion-drug-supreme-court-mifepristone-fda/

The Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it will decide this term whether to limit access to a key abortion drug, returning the polarizing issue of reproductive rights to the high court for the first time since the conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

The Biden administration and the manufacturer of mifepristone have asked the justices to overturn a lower-court ruling that would make it more difficult to obtain the medication, which is part of a two-drug regimen used in more than half of all abortions in the United States.

The conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit said the federal government acted unlawfully years ago when it began loosening regulations for obtaining the pill. The appeals court said the Food and Drug Administration did not follow proper procedures when it allowed the drug — which was first approved more than 20 years ago — to be taken later in pregnancy, to be mailed directly to patients and to be prescribed by a medical professional other than a doctor.

Medications to terminate pregnancy have increased in importance because more than a dozen states severely limited or banned abortions after the Supreme Court’s ruling last June in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That’s partly because the drugs can be sent by mail and taken at home.

If access to mifepristone was restricted, abortion providers and advocates say, pregnancies could still be terminated using only the second drug in the regimen, misoprostol. But using that drug alone causes more cramping and bleeding, and abortion opponents could move to restrict its use as well if they win limits on the use of mifepristone from the high court.

[ Faced with abortion bans, doctors beg hospitals for help with key decisions ]

The court’s decision to review the mifepristone case is not surprising. In April, after a District Court ruling to suspend FDA approval of the drug, the justices said existing rules for prescribing and distributing mifepristone would remain in place nationwide while the litigation continues.

In that order, only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would not have granted the Biden administration’s request for a stay of the District Court decision. Critics say the lower court’s ruling undermines the role of federal regulatory agencies.

Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the high court that mifepristone has been safely used by millions of people over more than two decades, and warned that allowing the lower court’s decision to stand would have “damaging consequences for women seeking lawful abortions and a healthcare system that relies on the availability of the drug under the current conditions of use.”

The challenge to mifepristone was initiated by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, an association of antiabortion doctors and others. The group asserted that the FDA did not sufficiently consider safety concerns when it approved the drug in 2000 or when it removed some restrictions years later — allowing the use of mifepristone through 10 weeks of pregnancy, for instance, instead of seven.

The group filed its lawsuit in Amarillo, Tex., where U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk — a Trump nominee with long-held antiabortion views — is the sole sitting judge. He sided with the challengers and suspended FDA approval of the medication.

The 5th Circuit reversed that part of Kacsmaryk’s order, but agreed with him in blocking the changes starting in 2016 for how the drug was prescribed and distributed, and at what point in a pregnancy it could be used.

[mariacallous]

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in a challenge to abortion pill access across the country, including in states where abortion is legal. The stakes for abortion rights are sky-high, and the case is the most consequential battle over reproductive health care access since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

At the center of this fight is mifepristone, a pill that blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy. The drug has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for more than two decades, and it’s used to treat some patients with Cushing’s syndrome, as well as endometriosis and uterine fibroids. But its primary use is the one contested now—mifepristone is the first of two pills taken in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy for a standard medication abortion, along with the drug misoprostol.

If the justices side with the antiabortion activists seeking to limit access to mifepristone, it could upend nationwide access to the most common form of abortion care. A ruling that invalidates mifepristone’s approval would open the door for any judge to reverse the FDA approval of any drug, especially ones sometimes seen as controversial, such as HIV drugs and hormonal birth control. It could also have a chilling effect on the development of new drugs, making companies wary of investing research into medicines that could later be pulled from the market.

Pills are now the leading abortion method in the US, and their popularity has spiked in recent years. More than six in 10 abortions in 2023 were carried out via medication, according to new data from the Guttmacher Institute. Since rules around telehealth were relaxed during the Covid-19 pandemic, many patients seeking medication abortions have relied on virtual clinics, which send abortion pills by mail. And it keeps getting more popular: Hey Jane, a prominent telemedicine provider, saw demand increase 73 percent from 2022 to 2023. It recorded another 28 percent spike comparing data from January 2023 to January 2024.

“Telemedicine abortion is too effective to not be in the targets of antiabortion folks,” says Julie F. Kay, a longtime reproductive rights lawyer and director of the advocacy group Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine.

Tomorrow’s argument comes after a long, tangled series of legal disputes in lower courts. The Supreme Court will be hearing two cases consolidated together, including FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, in which a coalition of antiabortion activists filed a suit challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, asking for it to be removed from the market. The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a right-wing Christian law firm that often takes politically charged cases.

Despite decades of scientific consensus on the drug’s safety record, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine has alleged that mifepristone is dangerous to women and leads to emergency room visits. A 2021 study cited by the plaintiffs to back up their claims was retracted in February after an independent review found that its authors came to inaccurate conclusions.

In April 2023, the Trump-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas issued a preliminary ruling on the FDA case invalidating the agency’s approval of mifepristone. The ruling sent shock waves far beyond the reproductive-rights world, as it had major implications for the entire pharmaceutical industry, as well as the FDA itself; the ruling suggested that the courts could revoke a drug’s approval even after decades on the market.

The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed Kacsmaryk’s decision a week later, allowing the drug to remain on the market, but undid FDA decisions in recent years that made mifepristone easier to prescribe and obtain. That decision limited the time frame in which it can be taken to the first seven weeks of pregnancy and put telemedicine access, as well as access to the generic version of the drug in jeopardy.

Following the 5th Circuit ruling, the FDA and Danco Laboratories sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, asking the justices to preserve access until it could hear the case. In its legal filing, Danco aptly described the situation as “regulatory chaos.”

SCOTUS issued a temporary stay, maintaining the status quo; the court ultimately decided to take up the case in December 2023.

As all this was unfolding, pro-abortion-rights states across the country were passing what are known as shield laws, which protect medical practitioners who offer abortion care to pregnant patients in states where abortion is banned. This has allowed some providers, including the longtime medication-abortion-advocacy group Aid Access, to mail abortion pills to people who requested them in states like Louisiana and Arkansas.

Though the oral arguments before the Supreme Court begin on Tuesday, it will likely be months before a ruling. Court watchers suspect a decision may be handed down in June. With the US presidential election in the fall, the ruling may become a major campaign issue, especially as abortion access helped galvanize voters in the 2022 midterms.

If the Supreme Court agrees with the plaintiffs that mifepristone should be taken off the market, some in the pharmaceutical industry worry that it will undermine the authority of the FDA, the agency tasked with reviewing and approving drugs based on their safety and efficacy.

“This case isn't about mifepristone,” says Elizabeth Jeffords, CEO of Iolyx Therapeutics, a company developing drugs for immune and eye diseases. Jeffords is a signatory on an amicus brief filed in April 2023 that brought together 350 pharmaceutical companies, executives, and investors to challenge the Texas district court’s ruling.

“This case could have easily been about minoxidil for hair loss. It could have been about Mylotarg for cancer. It could have been about measles vaccines,” Jeffords says. “This is about whether or not the FDA is allowed to be the scientific arbiter of what is good and safe for patients.”

Greer Donley, an associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on abortion on the law, doesn’t think it’s likely that the court will revoke mifepristone’s approval entirely. Instead, she sees two possible outcomes. The Supreme Court could dismiss the case or could undo the FDA’s decision in 2023 to permanently remove the in-person dispensing requirement and allow abortion by telehealth. “This would be an even more narrow decision than what the 5th Circuit did, but it would still be pretty devastating to abortion access,” she says.

The Supreme Court could also decide that the plaintiffs lack a right to bring the case to court, says David Cohen, a professor of law at Drexel University whose expertise is in constitutional law and gender issues. “This case could get kicked out on standing, meaning that the plaintiffs aren't the right people to bring this case,” he says. “If most of the questions are about standing, that will give you a sense that that's what the justices are concerned about.”

As the current Supreme Court is considered virulently antiabortion, reproductive-health-care workers are already preparing for the worst. Some telehealth providers have already floated a backup plan: offering misoprostol-only medication abortions. This is less than ideal, as the combination of pills is the current standard of care and offers the best results; misoprostol on its own can cause additional cramping and nausea. For some providers who may have to choose between misoprostol-only or nothing, it’s better than nothing.

Abortion-rights activists have no plans to give up on telehealth abortions, regardless of the outcome of this particular case. “Let us be clear, Hey Jane will not stop delivering telemedicine abortion care, regardless of the outcome of this case,” says Hey Jane’s CEO and cofounder, Kiki Freedman.

“They’re not going to stuff the genie back in the bottle,” Kay says.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Abortion rights groups have raised concerns that a Donald Trump-nominated federal judge approving an anti-contraception lawsuit is proof the GOP will go further restricting the procedure post Roe v. Wade.

Matthew Kacsmaryk, a judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, recently issued an opinion on the case of Deanda v. Becerra, a lawsuit filed by a Christian father hoping to block the Title X federal program.

In his suit, Alexander Deanda argues that Title X, which approves family planning services be available for anyone, including minors, violates his constitutional right as a parent.

Deanda claims that as he is raising his children as Christians and therefore should "practice abstinence and refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage," Title X violates the direct upbringing of his children.

In his December 8 opinion, Kacsmaryk said that the federal program for birth control does violate Deanda's rights.

While the judge, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2017, did not halt the program in his ruling, he allowed both slides to present their arguments for what should happen next.

Deanda's legal team have already signaled they will seek to temporarily shut down Title X while the case is being resolved, potentially putting young people's chance to access contraceptives in limbo while the case is being argued.

The opinion meant Kacsmaryk became the first federal justice to approve a challenge to the right to contraception in the wake of the overturning of Roe V. Wade.

Abortion rights and pro-contraception groups say the ruling is proof fears conservative judges will use the Supreme Court's overturning of the landmark abortion ruling to push forward with further restrictions are coming into fruition.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told Newsweek: "Abortion opponents in Texas won't stop with overturning Roe—they are actively working to strip away access to basic health care services and restrict everyone's ability to control their own lives, bodies, and futures. This court's ruling could mean that young people in Texas would no longer be able to get birth control through the Title X family planning program without parental consent, contrary to federal requirements and guidance from American Academy of Pediatrics and others, who support confidential health care services for minors.”

"The ruling could violate long-standing precedent, may have devastating consequences to the health and well-being of young people, and potentially lead to even greater restrictions to health care in the future," McGill Johnson added.

As argued by Vox's Ian Millhiser, who first reported on the decision, Kacsmaryk's ruling will almost certainly be thrown out by either the next appellate court or the Supreme Court as it is "riddled with legal errors."

Millhiser notes that one major issue is that the lawsuit lacks "standing"—evidence that a federal program has harmed the plaintiff in some way.

In his suit, Deanda does not claim that his children are attempting to access contraception via Title X, or even hypothetically planning to, but he is still attempting to block the program from offering contraception to minors without parental consent.

Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said that the fact that Kacsmaryk took up the legally and constitutionally unsound case is proof that "anti-choice extremists never intended to stop" with overturning Roe v. Wade.

"They're coming for birth control, in vitro fertilization, and more," Timmaraju told Newsweek.

"This is their long game: Trump's judges are trying to twist the courts in their out-of-touch image for decades to come, and we must do everything in our power to stop them from taking away our fundamental freedoms."

It was the written opinion of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in June for Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade's guarantee of access to abortion, which sparked concerns from Democrats and pro-abortion groups that conservatives will go further.

Thomas wrote that after voting to overturn Roe v. Wade, the court now has a "duty" to review all the Supreme Court's due process precedents.

Thomas named three cases as examples of where SCOTUS could "correct the error": Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the right to same-sex marriage in 2015, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down laws that made sodomy illegal in 2003, and Griswold v. Connecticut, which allows married couples a legal right to buy and use contraceptives.

In July, one month after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the House passed the Right to Contraception Act, which would grant Americans a federal right to obtain and use birth control and contraception.

The bill cleared the House in a 228 to 195 vote, with all those who objected to the bill being Republicans.

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL), a co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, argued on the House floor that the bill was "completely unnecessary" and the right to contraception is not at risk.

"The liberal majority is clearly trying to stoke fears and mislead the American people once again because in their minds stoking fear clearly is the only way that they can win," Cammack said.

Following the vote, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) tweeted: "Make no mistake: Republicans & the far-right majority on the Supreme Court will take every opportunity to undermine—or overturn—the right to access birth control."

[profeminist]

"U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday temporarily blocked lower court rulings that imposed tighter restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone.

U.S. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. Northern District of Texas suspended the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone last week.

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked that part of Kacsmaryk’s order and kept the FDA approval in place. But the appeals court temporarily re-imposed tighter restrictions on how mifepristone is used and distributed, which would make it more difficult for women to access the drug."

Read the full piece here: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/14/supreme-court-temporarily-blocks-abortion-pill-restrictions.html

[filosofablogger]

The Republican Taliban?

It would be a misstatement to say that Republican males hate women.  They don’t hate us, but they also don’t see us as equals, either physically, intellectually, or culturally.  We are, it would appear, put on this earth for their pleasure, to meet all their needs – sexually, taking care of their homes, cooking their meals, etc.  Sadly, they have convinced many Republican women that this is the…

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[From Robert B. Hubbell’s Newsletter]

Fifth Circuit holds a biased and embarrassing hearing on the mifepristone ruling of Judge Kacsmaryk

         Federal district Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued an order withdrawing the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. A panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling and ordered that the ruling go into effect immediately. The US Supreme Court reversed the 5th Circuit and issued an unusual order that effectively told the 5th Circuit it could not ban the distribution of mifepristone until the Supreme Court ruled on the matter. In other words, the Supreme Court put the 5th Circuit on a “time out” for bad behavior.

         A panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held oral arguments on the merits of the appeal today. The hearing was an embarrassment. The judges acted like petulant children who were upset that they had been reprimanded. Worse, they made no pretense of maintaining impartiality or objectivity—or adherence to the rule of law. The obscene display of judges following personal religious convictions rather than the Constitution is explained by Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, The 5th Circuit is furious that the Supreme Court put it in mifepristone timeout.

         I highly recommend reading Stern’s article in full to get the full flavor of the hearing. Stern is at his best in this article. He writes, in part:

And here’s the punchline: Nothing these intellectual Lilliputians do will even matter. The Supreme Court has already decided that the 5th Circuit cannot be trusted with this case: In April, it froze the court’s previous decision stringently limiting access to mifepristone, expressly maintaining the freeze until the justices themselves take further action. Elrod, Ho, and Wilson are howling into the wind; they have no power to change a thing about federal regulation of medication abortion. The adults in the room have already put them in time-out. And rather than demonstrate that they can judge responsibly, they seized on Wednesday’s hearing to throw a combination temper tantrum/gaslight party. No lessons have been learned, no maturity acquired. This time-out probably isn’t ending anytime soon.

Ho read aloud random people’s criticisms of the FDA and made Ellsworth respond to them, then declared that federal courts should override the FDA’s scientific determinations because the agency isn’t trustworthy.

These are not serious people. This is not how real judges conduct themselves. This was barely a judicial proceeding. It was a struggle session in which three anti-abortion zealots yelled at attorneys who have already prevailed in this case once at the Supreme Court. Their rage should have been aimed at SCOTUS, but it’s not a good look for lower courts to trash-talk their superiors, so they redirected it to Harrington and Ellsworth instead. (Erin Hawley, wife of Sen. Josh Hawley, argued against mifepristone; the less said about her unceasing stream of shameless falsehoods, the better.)

         I also recommend Talking Points Memo, Right-Wing Judges Mulling Restricting Abortion Drug: Isn’t The Real Problem Here How Mean You All Were To Kacsmaryk?

         If we had a functioning Supreme Court that cared about the rule of law, it would castigate the 5th Circuit panel for its shameful display of bias, animus, and religious zeal.

         But, as Stern notes, the 5th Circuit cannot restrict the distribution of mifepristone. And the failure of the 5th Circuit to address serious legal questions—like the absence of standing by the plaintiff doctors—may doom the 5th Circuit’s opinion to a chilly reception in the Supreme Court. We can only hope.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[kiramoore626]

U.S. judge rejects Biden administration's LGBT health protections

U.S. judge rejects Biden administration’s LGBT health protections

U.S. judge rejects Biden administration’s LGBT health protections A federal judge in Texas ruled on Friday that President Joe Biden’s administration had wrongly interpreted an Obamacare provision as barring health care providers from discriminating against gay and transgender people. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo ruled that a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2020…

[prolifeproliberty]

Please pray for our courts, especially the 5th Circuit and SCOTUS.

Kacsmaryk, the judge who issued this ruling, put a 7-day delay on it to allow time for the 5th Circuit to decide whether to allow an emergency stay until there can be an appeal. So abortion pills can still be dispensed this week, but may become illegal nationwide as early as next Friday.

The ruling here is partially because of safety concerns, and partially because the initial approval was based on the FDA calling pregnancy a “disease” and therefore making the abortion pill a “therapeutic.” The argument is that pregnancy itself is not a disease, and therefore you can’t justify approving a drug to “treat” it.

If the ruling is not overturned, this is a huge nationwide victory - chemical abortions are the most common type, and sending them by mail has been the abortion industry’s backup plan for states that have already abolished abortion.

There is no guarantee that the FDA would actually enforce their own rules and go after anyone selling the abortion pill illegally, but it would open the door for that to happen.