Texas judge issues 7 day stay on mifepristone

Along with everyone else, I expected this judge to side with the busybodies.


“ The lawsuit was brought by the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of antiabortion medical organizations and four doctors who say they have treated patients with mifepristone. It claims the FDA did not have the power to approve the drug — one of two medications that are used together to terminate a pregnancy — and takes issue with the agency’s easing of restrictions on the pill through the years.


Public health professionals and legal experts have denounced the lawsuit as unsupported by scientific evidence. The FDA has repeatedly found the two-step medication abortion protocol to be a safe and effective alternative to surgical abortions. The drug manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, and the Justice Department have called the plaintiff’s claims baseless.
But the challengers accused the FDA of choosing politics over science when it approved “chemical abortion drugs,” and of purposely ignoring what the plaintiffs claim are potentially harmful side effects.”



What an ironic name for the group that brought the lawsuit; Alliance Defending Freedom. Whose freedom, exactly? Conservatives keep siding with the small percentage of fanatics who oppose abortion, despite losing several election cycles.

Again, before you vote for ANY Republican, remember who they really answer to.

Huh?

Meanwhile, with the second court case now ruled upon, the drug manufacturer is literally unable to comply with both federal rulings! I realize that's not the larger issue here, but it's still just bonkers. Supposedly there is no legal precedent setting the course of action for them. They are required to offer the drug, but at the same time, forbidden from offering it???

From a WaPo profile of the judge:


“Although Judge Kacsmaryk’s family members, including his parents, did not respond to requests for comment, records and interviews with friends suggest his conservative views have remained a major part of his identity, both in his professional and personal life. He lists himself in his profile for the federal courts as a current member of the Federalist Society and the Philadelphia Society, a national conservative organization.

He served on the board of Ms. Statler’s organization, Christian Homes & Family Services, from 2016 until he became a judge. He and his wife remain donors, Ms. Statler said.

His experience with her group runs deep, she said. Judge Kacsmaryk’s sister used Christian Homes & Family Services years ago to put up her son for adoption. Ms. Statler said she could say no more for privacy reasons, and Judge Kacsmaryk’s sister, Jennifer Griffith, did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The New York Times.

But Ms. Griffith told The Washington Post earlier this year that her brother had come to support her when she was a pregnant 17-year-old and had fled to Christian Homes. He held her baby in his arms, she said, and that experience, along with leaving the infant with adoptive parents, solidified her brother’s belief that every pregnancy should be treasured.

“He’s very passionate about the fact that you can’t preach pro-life and do nothing,” Ms. Griffith told The Post.

Ms. Statler agreed about Judge Kacsmaryk. “I just know he just has a real tender spot for caring for women,” she told The Times, “and particularly women who are pregnant.”



Who believes that this guy kept his personal views out of his decision?

Hmmmm, can we sue gun manufacturers for the trauma and make them stop offering AR-15s?

I doubt anyone on either side of the argument believes that.

And it's total BS. Your moral beliefs have no bearing on your legal rulings - well, supposedly - except in the case where morals equal laws, such as no murder.

This opinion tears apart the decision on what sound like solid legal grounds.


www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/opinion/abortion-pill-case-decision.html

The Friday-night ruling by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk purporting to stay the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone for use in early abortions is a travesty — for women’s health care, principles of democracy, notions of judicial impartiality and the rule of law.

Judge Kacsmaryk put his opinion on hold for seven days to allow the government to seek emergency relief, and the federal government has already filed its notice of appeal in the Fifth Circuit. But if the opinion ever goes into effect, the broadest reading of it could render mifepristone unavailable not just in states like Texas but across the country.

At last month’s hearing on this challenge, the plaintiffs could not identify a single case in which another federal judge had issued the sort of order that Judge Kacsmaryk, an appointee of Donald Trump, ultimately issued. Indeed, our legal system does not ordinarily allow a single Federal District Court judge to override an expert agency’s decades-old decision, in this case that a drug is safe and effective — in particular when that drug is as widely used and essential as mifepristone, one of the medications in the two-drug protocol that is now used in over half of the abortions in this country.

This case is wildly atypical for a number of reasons. Under well-settled legal principles, the plaintiffs in the case — a coalition of anti-abortion organizations and physicians — do not have the right to be in court asking for this remedy at all. As commentators from across the political spectrum have noted, the plaintiffs lack standing, a core requirement of any lawsuit in federal court.

They are also bringing their challenge far too late. It is clear that the case is not in response to the F.D.A.’s 23-year-old decision to approve mifepristone or the intervening reaffirmations of that decision; rather, it is in response to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which last June overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The umbrella organization that is the lead party in this case, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, incorporated itself in Amarillo, Texas — where Judge Kacsmaryk sits — just weeks after Dobbs.

Additionally, the opinion’s conclusion — that the approval of mifepristone most likely violated federal standards for drug approval — is based on several reasons that are scientifically baseless and infused with hostility to abortion, including that the F.D.A. failed to consider “the intense psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress women often experience from chemical abortion.”

Much of the opinion is tonally shocking and medically unsound. Rather than using the term “fetus,” it refers exclusively to “unborn children” and “unborn humans.” It describes mifepristone as used to “kill” or “starve” a fetus, rather than end a pregnancy. It accuses the Biden administration of promoting “eugenics” for identifying the harms to families and existing children that flow from women being denied access to wanted abortions.

This lawsuit and this decision paint a chilling picture of how unconstrained corners of the federal judiciary have become and what’s likely to come next in the legal and political fights over abortion. Many abortion opponents in the run-up to Dobbs argued that the problem with Roe v. Wade was that it removed the question of abortion from the democratic process. But the post-Dobbs era has seen abortion opponents only double down on efforts not to let the states or the people decide for themselves but to undermine access to abortion in every state.

Maryland's governor Wes Moore has issued a statement that it will remain a right in the state. As much as I mourn for my sisters in red states who are treating them like cattle, I'm glad there are safe harbors of defiance should it come down to it and I hope we can roll back this move to shove us uterus owners all back into the bad old days in 2024 which is coming at us fast.

Well, they have control of the house, they can try to pull what Tennessee did. Esp in a state where a GOP gov would appoint a replacement

They might succeed because of the current conservative majority Supreme Court thanks in large part to trump.

Hillary warned us about this.

Surprising from Alito but relieved women will still have access.