A Scalia Clerk Dismantles the Medication Abortion Decision

[Nevilledog]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/medication-abortion-mifepristone-ruling-errors.html


On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued an order overturning the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. The order will take effect within seven days unless it is stayed or reversed by a higher court.

The court holds that the plaintiffs have standing, that their lawsuit was filed on time, that their lawsuit can proceed even though they did not make their arguments to the FDA, and that they win on the merits. Each of these holdings is egregiously wrong. This excerpt will walk through the court’s errors on the issue of standing, which are sufficient to establish that a higher court should stay and ultimately reverse Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision.

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The plaintiffs are organizations of pro-life doctors seeking to overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone in 2000. Under a 2013 Supreme Court case called Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, the plaintiffs bear the burden of proving a “certainly impending” injury from the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. Neither the organizations, nor their doctor-members, can meet that standard. The plaintiffs’ philosophical disagreement with abortion does not give them standing to seek a federal court order banning all doctors nationwide from prescribing mifepristone to their patients.

The district court nonetheless finds that the plaintiffs have both associational standing (based on injuries suffered by their doctor-members) and organizational standing (based on injuries to the organizations themselves). Both holdings are profoundly wrong.

The court starts with associational standing. It begins by reciting assertions from the plaintiffs’ filings and declaring, without additional analysis, that they establish standing. For example, the court quotes the plaintiffs’ assertions that “chemical abortion drugs can overwhelm the medical system” and “consume crucial limited resources” such as “blood for transfusions.”

*snip*

[msfiddlestix]

1. Which District Court does this Judge rule from?

[Nevilledog]

2. He's in Amarillo... The ONLY judge and that's why they always file before him.

[msfiddlestix]

3. thank you. n/t

[crickets]

4. Good read! K&R for visibility.