It’s problematic enough that a federal judge in Texas known for his aggressively right-wing politics from the bench is presiding over a lawsuit that seeks to outlaw a widely used abortion drug. If past is prelude, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk will do whatever he can to aid the anti-choice plaintiffs — as demonstrated by his remarkably brazen attempt this week to thwart protests and media coverage of the case.
Kacsmaryk is a Donald Trump appointee who has a history of controversial rulings on immigration, LGBTQ rights and other issues. In the current case, he tried to postpone putting a Wednesday hearing on the public court docket, as would normally happen, according to a Washington Post report that exposed the scheme. If this is the judge’s idea of a fair and impartial approach to this important case, women seeking abortion care around the country are truly in trouble.
At issue is a lawsuit by a conservative group seeking to revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a drug commonly used in early stage medication abortions, which is the most common form of the procedure. Plaintiffs claim the FDA ignored harmful side effects of the drug, despite the fact that it was approved more than two decades ago and has been widely used with few reported problems since then.
