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when. . .when Supreme Court Overturning federal abortion rights last June, Justice Samuel Alito majority opinion Stressed that “now is the time to abide by the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the elected representatives of the people.”
justice Brett Kavanaugh Going a step further, respectively, stressing that the dispute will now be that of state officials, judges will no longer have to deal with “difficult moral and policy questions” related to when women are allowed to terminate pregnancies.
But Wednesday’s drama over medical abortion in a Texas courthouse showed that judges remain at the heart of the abortion issue in America and reinforced the possibility that another battle over reproductive rights could soon play out in the high court.
Whether Kavanaugh was trying to downplay the fallout from June’s startling decision or ignore the entrenched presence of anti-abortion enemies, neither he nor the other conservatives who ruled 5-4 are acknowledging the kind of controversy that’s taking place now Judge Matthew Cachmarik.
A single federal judge — not a duly elected state legislature — has the power to shut down the use of abortion drugs and prevent women from seeking to terminate their pregnancies, even in states where the procedure remains legal. Such an order could sweep across the country, rather than being limited to one state.
With live protests and increased courtroom security, this worrying new chapter reveals how America’s war on abortion has intensified since the June 24, 2022, ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.
Oral arguments can give some insight into the judge’s thinking, but during a four-hour hearing Wednesday in an Amarillo courthouse, Kacsmaryk Expresses openness to challenger efforts Revocation of FDA approval of abortion drug. Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2019, previously served as deputy general counsel at the conservative Christian legal advocacy group First Liberty Institute and expressed anti-abortion views.
The case began last November when a group of anti-abortion groups and doctors challenged it in Kacsmaryk’s constituency – an apparent move to win over a sympathetic jurist.Challengers ask him to take unprecedented step, order FDA to reverse review mifepristonethe first of two drugs used for abortion.
FDA authorization dates back to 2000, and today medical abortions account for more than half of all abortions in the United States.
When the challengers sued the FDA in their paperwork, they cited Dobbs’ decision to remove constitutional protections. But as Kavanaugh, who cast a pivotal vote, emphasized, states still have the right to keep abortion legal within their borders.
“To be clear, then,” Kavanaugh wrote in his concurring opinion, “the Court’s decision today did not ban abortion across the United States. Rather, the Court’s decision properly leaves the issue of abortion to the people and their elected Representation is resolved in a democratic process. Through a democratic process, the people and their representatives can decide to allow or restrict abortion.”
Kavanaugh, the second of three Supreme Court justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, said Dobbs’ decision “didn’t stop many states that were easy to allow abortion from continuing to allow it easily. That includes, if they Chosen, in favor of plaintiffs’ friend states in this court: New York, California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii.”
However, procedural legality in these states may mean little if needed medications are not available.
When the Supreme Court struck down federal abortion rights last June, justices disagreed on the consequences of future abortion disputes. The three dissenting justices warned that it would put federal judges “on the cusp of controversy,” leading them to “further wade into hotly contested issues, including moral and philosophical ones.”
The trio (Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and the now-retired Stephen Breyer) cited possible threats to medical abortion in their dissent.
“(T)his ruling today raises a host of questions about the interstate conflict,” they said. “Can a state prohibit a woman from traveling to another state for an abortion? Can a state prohibit advertising for out-of-state abortions or helping women find an out-of-state provider? Can the state interfere with the mail-in of drugs used for medical abortions? The Constitution protects travel and speech as well as interstate commerce, so today’s ruling will raise a new set of constitutional issues. Rather than removing the court from the abortion issue, the majority places the court at the center of the coming “cross-jurisdictional war on abortion” center.
In the Texas case, the anti-abortion coalition argues that the FDA has failed to adequately test the safety and effectiveness of abortion drugs over the past two decades. Seeking immediate action from Kacsmaryk, they wrote in the filing that “without a ban, these dangerous drugs would cause physical complications, emotional trauma and death in women.”
The FDA countered that mifepristone has been shown to be safe. Its lawyers pointed to the agency’s expertise and said the Hippocratic Medical Union wanted to “overturn long-standing scientific decisions based on allegations of speculative injury.”
In the Dobbs case, chief justice john roberts Aligned in part with Liberals because he opposed a full reversal of Roe v. Wade. However, he declined to sign any of their joint dissents and wrote separately that he would support Mississippi’s controversial 15-week abortion ban — and not go any further.
Kavanaugh rejected that stopping point. Any lingering abortion rights, he wrote in repeated language in his opinion, “will be determined by the people and their elected representatives through a constitutional process of democratic self-government, as provided for in the Constitution.”