Actually, One Texas Judge Is Not the Final Decision-Maker on Medication Abortion

One district judge’s ruling does not have to affect the entire country.

BY DAVID S. COHEN, GREER DONLEY, AND RACHEL REBOUCHE
FEB 28, 2023

All eyes in the fight over reproductive rights and justice have been focused on a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk will soon decide a case involving the first drug in a medication abortion, mifepristone. Though the case makes wholly unpersuasive arguments, undermined by the facts and the evidence, plaintiffs filed in this specific court because Kacsmaryk is one of the most conservative judges on the federal bench and has an explicit and documented animus toward abortion. The expectation is that he will do everything in his power to end medication abortion as we know it. Because states like Texas have already banned abortion (including medication abortion), the deep fear is that his ruling could affect abortion care even in states where it remains legal.

But we would like to offer some clarification here. Because despite the barrage of predictions that this case could ban mifepristone and take it off the market, there are several basic legal principles suggesting that Judge Kacsmaryk’s power is limited and that a ruling for the plaintiffs will not necessarily change much at all with medication abortion.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/02/texas-judge-abortion-case-actually-limited-mifepristone.html

A Trump Judge Could Ban Abortion Pills In the US Within Days

One of the most common and safe abortion drugscould be banned nationwide this week—regardless of a state’s abortion restrictions.

By Carter Sherman
February 21, 2023

One of the most common and safe abortion drugs could be banned nationwide as soon as Friday, thanks to a lawsuit that could impact every state in the country—regardless of that state’s abortion restrictions.

Abortion rights supporters and foes alike are bracing for a ruling in a lawsuit, filed late last year, that accused the Food and Drug Administration of overstepping its authority when it approved the use of the drug mifepristone for abortions. Although the lawsuit was initially regarded as something of a longshot legal oddity among abortion rights activists, that attitude quickly changed once people realized that the suit was sure to be overseen by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump and is widely known for his conservative views on abortion.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjkgkd/us-abortion-pill-ban-lawsuit

USA – The Future of Abortion Pills Is on the Line

FEB. 3, 2023
By Andrea González-Ramírez

Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, abortion pills have been a powerful tool for people to safely end a pregnancy on their own at home in the 14 states that have banned abortion. Abortion opponents and supporters are deeply invested in either cutting off or expanding access to the pills, and that tension has triggered a wave of legal challenges that could determine the future of medication abortion in the U.S.

“Back in the pre-Roe era, abortion was all done via procedure, which meant that if you could control the gatekeepers — the providers — then you could stop abortion in your state or stop a lot of it,” says Greer Donley, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. “But now pills travel across borders all the time. It makes abortion really hard to control.”

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2023/02/whats-happening-with-abortion-pills-in-the-courts.html

USA – The Harshest Abortion Restrictions Are Yet to Come

The pro-life movement is now focused on three major strategies at the state level.

By David S. Cohen, Greer Donley, and Rachel Rebouché - The Atlantic
JULY 11, 2022

The Dobbs decision will forever change many people’s lives. But it also sparked a legal revolution that is just beginning. State by state, the movement that fought to overturn Roe v. Wade is now fighting for even more extreme measures.

This means that the harshest restrictions on abortion are yet to come. As the anti-abortion movement works toward its goal of a nationwide abortion ban, we can expect it to pursue three major legal strategies now that Roe has been overruled.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/pro-life-legal-strategies-abortion/661517/

11.07.2022

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Opinion

David S. Cohen

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

fetal personhood

Greer Donley

National Right to Life Committee

Rachel Rebouché

traveling for abortion

USA – The Coming Legal Battles Over Abortion Pills

How will the abortion pill be regulated in a post-Roe country? Four big questions about the looming legal battles.

By RACHEL REBOUCHÉ, DAVID S. COHEN and GREER DONLEY
05/24/2022

After the disclosure of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in the Supreme Court’s abortion case, there has been a flurry of commentary about the return to pre-Roe times. Much of that coverage has focused on the expenses and legal intricacies of abortion travel, bottlenecks at clinics in abortion-supportive states and the likelihood of criminal prosecution in anti-abortion states.

These are valid concerns if Roe is overturned, after which about half the states would make abortion illegal. But in one major respect, abortion has changed dramatically since 1973 when Roe was decided: the uptake of medication abortion, the two-drug regimen (mifepristone followed by misoprostol) that ends a pregnancy through ten weeks with pills. In 2020, medication abortion accounted for 54 percent of all abortions.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/24/coming-legal-battles-abortion-pills-00034558

States Want to Ban Abortions Beyond Their Borders. Here’s What Pro-Choice States Can Do.

March 13, 2022
By David S. Cohen, Greer Donley and Rachel Rebouché

A recently introduced Missouri provision would allow
private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident get an abortion in
another state.

The provision is part of a wave of state anti-abortion
legislation, some of it quite radical, that’s being considered in the months
ahead of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
Organization — the case that’s expected to severely compromise, if not entirely
jettison, the nationwide right to abortion under Roe v. Wade. The result of
such an outcome would be that about half the states in the country would ban
nearly all abortions.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/13/opinion/missouri-abortion-roe-v-wade.html

13.03.2022

Commentary

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David S. Cohen

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Joe Biden Can’t Save Roe v. Wade Alone. But He Can Do This.

Dec. 30, 2021
By David S. Cohen, Greer Donley and Rachel Rebouché

The constitutional right to abortion has never been more fragile than it is heading into 2022. The Supreme Court has allowed S.B. 8, Texas’ drastic — and clearly unconstitutional — ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, to remain in place for months, making Roe v. Wade virtually a dead letter in the state. Even worse, a Supreme Court decision that’s expected this summer is likely to either gut Roe or overturn the precedent altogether, paving the way for total abortion bans in about half the states around the country.

If the high court refuses to uphold abortion rights for all Americans and with Congress hopelessly stalemated over legislation that would codify a federal right to abortion, the Biden administration can and should act boldly to protect abortion access. But it will require some outside-the-box thinking — and a willingness to experiment with tactics that may well fail. If President Biden supports abortion as a critical right, as he has suggested, then he and his administration must take risks and get creative in pursuit of that goal. The anti-abortion movement has repeatedly pushed the envelope without fear of defeat. It’s time for activists and politicians who support abortion rights to do the same.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/opinion/abortion-pills-biden.html

Today’s Supreme Court Case Makes It Clear: Amy Coney Barrett Will Decide the Future of Abortion Rights in the United States

That, to put it mildly, is not good news for the future of abortion rights

DECEMBER 1, 2021
By DAVID S. COHEN

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard a Mississippi case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. After almost two hours of oral argument, it’s clear that the fate of nationwide legal abortion is now in the hands of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. That’s not good news for the future of abortion rights.

The case argued today involved a ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Roe and subsequent Supreme Court cases had been entirely clear that states could not ban abortion before “viability,” a medical term indicating when a fetus has developed enough that it could survive outside a woman on its own (though with extraordinary medical intervention). For most pregnancies, that’s about 23 or 24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/abortion-supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett-mississippi-1265450/

USA – Fetal Viability, Long an Abortion Dividing Line, Faces a Supreme Court Test

On Wednesday, the justices will hear the most important abortion case in decades, one that could undermine or overturn Roe v. Wade.

By Adam Liptak
Nov. 28, 2021

WASHINGTON — In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court drew a line. The Constitution, it said, did not allow states to ban abortions before the fetus could survive outside the womb.

On Wednesday, when the court hears the most important abortion case in a generation, a central question will be whether the court’s conservative majority is prepared to erase that line. The case concerns a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, long before fetal viability.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/us/politics/supreme-court-mississippi-abortion-law.html

Roe v. Wade Is Now in the Hands of the Three Trump Justices

Does that mean it might be safe?

BY DAVID S. COHEN AND DAHLIA LITHWICK
JULY 28, 2021

One of the most interesting fissures that has opened up within the conservative legal movement in recent years has been between mainstream conservative lawyers and the growing performance artist faction of the lawyers for the Trump base. Soon, the conservative justices themselves will have to pick which side of the battle they are on: With the filing last week of a brief that explicitly asks the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the state of Mississippi is forcing the court’s three newest Trump-appointed justices to choose between institutional stability and law that channels right-wing internet memes.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/mississippi-roe-challenge-barrett-kavanaugh-gorsuch.html