USA – The Supreme Court’s Abortion Pill Ruling Should Satisfy Nobody

BY DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN
JUNE 13, 2024

On Thursday, the Supreme Court did the bare minimum necessary to operate like an actual court of law, unanimously throwing out an absurd and dangerous lawsuit against medication abortion. The justices do not deserve extra credit for refusing to embrace this deeply unserious litigation, and they should earn no gold stars for maintaining the legal status quo on abortion pills. They merely acted as minimally responsible adults in a room of sugared-up preschoolers, shutting down the lower courts’ lawless rampage over all known rules of standing in desperate pursuit of an anti-abortion agenda. It is chilling to the bone that activist lawyers and judges were able to wreak as much havoc as they did before SCOTUS put them in timeout.

And this bad joke of a case isn’t even over: A lower court has already teed up a do-over that could once again jeopardize access to reproductive care in all 50 states. Don’t call this decision a victory. It is at best a reprieve—an election-year performance of Supreme Court unanimity and sobriety that masks the damage the conservative supermajority has already inflicted, as well as the threats to reproductive freedom that lie ahead.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/supreme-court-abortion-pill-ruling-2024-comstock-threat.html

13.06.2024

FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine

USA – The Current Attack on Abortion Pills Will Fail. The Next One Will Be So Much Worse.

BY DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN
MARCH 26, 2024

There are always a couple of tells when the most conservative Supreme Court in more than a century finds itself adjudicating a truly mortifying and meritless case. One is that it’s coming up by way of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, a court that so consistently shovels its worst constitutional garbage upward that the high court conservatives are often forced to reluctantly lob it back. Another tell is when the facts of the case are so laugh-out-loud insane that even conservative justices can’t bring themselves to adopt them or the underpinning legal reasoning with a straight face. There’s yet a third tell: when the conservative justices start injecting a bunch of nonsense and randomized pet peeves into oral argument to distract from how embarrassing it would be to discuss the merits of the actual case.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/mifepristone-supreme-court-alito-national-abortion-ban.html

The Anti-Abortion Movement Finally Went Too Far for This Supreme Court

Mifepristone will remain legal in blue states, despite a lawless judicial effort to ban it.

BY MARK JOSEPH STERN
APRIL 21, 2023

On Friday evening, the Supreme Court halted U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s unprecedented effort to remove a key abortion drug, mifepristone, from the market nationwide. The order, which appears to be 7–2, ensures that mifepristone will remain legal and accessible in states where it remains lawful to prescribe. Only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito noted their dissents, but not a single justice even tried to defend the decision by Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee whose ruling earlier this month represented a particularly lawless attempt to assert power over the Food and Drug Administration. Friday’s stay sends a strong message to the lower courts that SCOTUS will not entertain this cynical attempt to impose new nationwide restrictions—and potentially even a ban—on abortion.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/abortion-pill-mifepristone-ruling-scotus-stays-legal.html

USA – The Lawless Ruling Against the Abortion Pill Has Already Prompted a Constitutional Crisis

This unprecedented abuse of judicial power with no basis in law or fact will soon force the Supreme Court’s hand.

BY MARK JOSEPH STERN
APRIL 07, 2023

On Friday evening, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas issued an unprecedented decision withdrawing the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, the first drug used in medication abortion, 23 years after it was first approved. His order, which applies nationwide, marks the first time in history that a court has claimed the authority to single-handedly pull a drug from the market, a power that courts do not, in fact, have. Kacsmaryk’s ruling is indefensible from top to bottom and will go down in history as one of the judiciary’s most shocking and lawless moments.

It goes even further than expected, raising the possibility that he will impose “fetal personhood,” which holds that every state must ban abortion because it murders a human. Within an hour of its release, the decision also spurred the start of a constitutional crisis: A federal judge in Washington swiftly issued a dueling injunction compelling the FDA to continue allowing mifepristone in 17 states and District of Columbia, which brought a separate suit in Washington.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/matthew-kacsmaryk-mifepristone-medication-abortion-supreme-court.html

07.04.2023

Commentary

5th Circuit Court of Appeals

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice overreach

The Real Reason Why the GOP Is Rushing to Pass Abortion Bans Without Exceptions for Rape

BY MARK JOSEPH STERN
JULY 19, 2022

The Supreme Court’s June 24 decision overruling Roe v. Wade unleashed an immediate and relentless flood of cruelty against pregnant Americans. Child victims of rape and incest, including a 10-year-old girl in Ohio, must cross state lines to obtain abortions. Patients undergoing a miscarriage are compelled to bleed out for days and risk sepsis before doctors are willing to terminate their pregnancies. Those with ectopic pregnancies, which are lethal and non-viable, are denied treatment due to the presence of a fetal “heartbeat.” Women suspected of being pregnant are denied vital treatment for autoimmune disorders because they happen to induce abortion, too.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/10-year-old-girl-rape-ohio-abortion-incest-life-exceptions.html

19.07.2022

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