I’ve pulled together many more articles on the fight over abortion rights as it continues here in the States. Some are quite positive from a pro-choice point of view, as states set themselves up to be abortion sanctuaries. Some showcase the continuing efforts to further force all states to comply with the forced-birth agenda of anti-choice activists.
As I have pointed out before, anti-choice activists continue to look for ways to restrict access to abortion pills in particular, since most abortions these days are medication abortions. Since the postal service is federal, there is no easy way to keep pills from moving through the mail, even into states that have banned them, since the pills have been held to be safe by the FDA for many years.
Then I came across this article by Dahlia Lithwick in Slate, and it seems there is one effort to restrict abortion medication that may pass through a single court, and soon.
Dobbs Was Always Just the Beginning
A single judge could outlaw the abortion pill nationwide. And that’s not even the worst of it.
… less than a year after the fall of Roe, conservative activists are trying to put the issue of abortion access into the hands of a single man for whom no one ever voted: a federal judge in Texas named Matthew Kacsmaryk. In the coming weeks, there is a very real possibility that Kacsmaryk will single-handedly outlaw medication abortion in all 50 states, massively disrupting access to reproductive health care across the entire country. Worse, there is a substantial likelihood that higher courts—including the Supreme Court—will let him get away with it.
…these activists think they have a solution to the pill problem: ban mifepristone, the first drug taken in the two-drug medication abortion protocol approved by the FDA, which ends the pregnancy. Rather than work through their elected representatives or popular votes, they are attempting to do this via a lawsuit seeking a nationwide injunction….
The suit was filed in the remote Amarillo division of the Northern District of Texas. No, there’s no specific connection between Amarillo and abortion pills. The plaintiffs only filed there because they were guaranteed to draw a single judge: Kacsmaryk, whom Donald Trump placed on the bench in 2019….Since his confirmation, he has gained a reputation as perhaps the most lawless jurist in the country….
You can absolutely count on Judge Kacsmaryk to rule that mifepristone can’t be used. It won’t matter that the plaintiffs have no standing to bring this suit since none of them have been personally harmed by these pills. It won’t matter that the pills have been used for decades without trouble, or that the court has no direct authority over the FDA. Once the judge enters an injunction barring the use of mifepristone, the drug will be barred until the case works its way through the upper courts, no doubt landing with the Supremes. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t personally trust this iteration of the Supreme Court to follow law and precedent, not any more.
Anyone needing a medication abortion will then have only one drug available, rather than the two-drug regimen that doctors prefer. It will make medication abortions less certain, more painful, and ensure they take longer to complete.
At the end of all this, I am left with a question. At what point do the blue states simply refuse to comply with these lawless judges and their attempts to force their religious beliefs on all of us? Well, I guess I really have two questions, because if any state decides to go that route you have to ask: what comes next? I have no idea.
ETA: State attorney generals have filed briefs in the case: 22 Democratic AGs arguing against banning mifepristone, 22 Republican AGs arguing in favor.
