Behind the Texas Abortion Law, a Persevering Conservative Lawyer

Jonathan Mitchell has never had a high profile in the anti-abortion movement, but he developed and promoted the legal approach that has flummoxed the courts and enraged abortion rights supporters.

By Michael S. Schmidt
Sept. 12, 2021

Jonathan F. Mitchell grew increasingly dismayed as he read the Supreme Court’s decision in June 2016 striking down major portions of a Texas anti-abortion bill he had helped write.

Not only had the court gutted the legislation, which Mr. Mitchell had quietly worked on a few years earlier as the Texas state government’s top appeals court lawyer, but it also had called out his attempt to structure the law in a way that would prevent judicial action to block it, essentially saying: nice try.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/us/politics/texas-abortion-lawyer-jonathan-mitchell.html

Supreme Court refuses to block Texas law banning abortions at six weeks

Texas law banning abortions at six weeks takes effect

By Robert Barnes, Ann E. Marimow, Emily Wax-Thibodeaux and Caroline Kitchener
Sep 1, 2021

A divided Supreme Court late Wednesday refused to block one of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws, a unique Texas statute that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

Because the court did not act earlier in the day, the law already had taken effect, and clinics in Texas said they had stopped providing abortions starting at six weeks after a woman’s last period.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/texas-six-week-abortion-ban/2021/09/01/e53cf372-0a6b-11ec-a6dd-296ba7fb2dce_story.html

What if the Supreme Court Rules on Abortion and the Country Shrugs?

What if the Supreme Court Rules on Abortion and the Country Shrugs?
There’s a potentially catastrophic decision coming. If you’ve struggled to focus on it, I don’t blame you.

By Lauren Kelley
June 21, 2020

Remember early March — that week or so before we fully grasped how much our lives were about to change? I was in Washington, D.C., to attend what turned out to be one of the last in-person oral arguments at the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future — the big abortion case out of Louisiana.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, on that trip I also ate my last meal inside a restaurant for a good while (huevos rancheros and a margarita), went to my last cultural institution (the Smithsonian’s African-American history museum, where I at least avoided the interactive exhibits and winced at a toddler licking the wall) and shared my last hug with someone outside my home.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/opinion/supreme-court-abortion-june-medical.html

USA – Justice Kennedy, the pivotal swing vote on the Supreme Court, announces his retirement

Justice Kennedy, the pivotal swing vote on the Supreme Court, announces his retirement
What Justice Kennedy's retirement means for the Supreme Court

by Robert Barnes June 27, 2018

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced Wednesday that he is retiring from the Supreme Court, a move that will give President Trump a chance to replace the pivotal justice and solidify a more conservative majority on the court that plays a crucial role in American life.

“It has been the greatest honor and privilege to serve our nation in the federal judiciary for 43 years, 30 of those years on the Supreme Court,” Kennedy, 81, said in a statement released in the afternoon of the last day of the term. He said his final day will be July 31.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/justice-kennedy-the-pivotal-swing-vote-on-the-supreme-court-announces-retirement/2018/06/27/a40a8c64-5932-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html?utm_term=.2e7c4ab3a380