They told us when Dobbs overthrew Roe v Wade, that they weren't coming after all the other things that relied on the same legal underpinning, yet here we are. A notorious Trump judge just fired the first shot against birth control But Kacsmaryk isn’t like most other judges. In his brief time on the bench — Trump appointed Kacsmaryk in 2019 — he has shown an extraordinary willingness to interpret the law creatively to benefit right-wing causes. This behavior is enabled, moreover, by the procedural rules that frequently enable federal plaintiffs in Texas to choose which judge will hear their case — 95 percent of civil cases filed in Amarillo, Texas’s federal courthouse are automatically assigned to Kacsmaryk. So litigants who want their case to be decided by a judge with a history as a Christian right activist, with a demonstrated penchant for interpreting the law flexibly to benefit his ideological allies, can all but ensure that outcome by bringing their lawsuit in Amarillo. And so, last Thursday, the inevitable occurred. Kacsmaryk handed down a decision claiming that “the Title X program violates the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.” Kacsmaryk’s decision is riddled with legal errors, some of them obvious enough to be spotted by a first-year law student. And it contradicts a 42-year-long consensus among federal courts that parents do not have a constitutional right to target government programs providing contraceptive care. So there’s a reasonable chance that Kacsmaryk will be reversed on appeal, even in a federal judiciary dominated by Republican appointees.
While the judicial system would still be awful, just a minor reform like oh... NOT BEING ABLE TO CHOOSE YOUR JUDGE! might make it slightly less so. I mean, just the fact that you can run to a judge, rubber stamp some batshit theory you know he'll buy and then basically sow chaos or suspend some law for months if not years seems pretty bad and undemocratic.
So when does the gop drop this hard on they have for micro managing people's lives? Especially ironic as they like to bark about freedom and limited government. Hypocrites.
Wasn't the past SCOTUS ruling that legalized birth control in all states on Clarance Thomas's "hit list" of cases he wanted to overturn? Edit: Yes ... it was. Thomas wants the Supreme Court to overturn landmark rulings that legalized contraception, same-sex marriage
This is typical for the Texas Trump "judges." There's a group of them who rubber stamp whatever idiotic lawsuits Republican activists bring.
I admittedly just scanned the article, but is this just saying that government grants won't be given to providers of birth control to minors that don't notify parents and get consent? I'd be in favor of requiring parental consent for medication that impacts hormones, for one. Also, couldn't they still get the products with money instead of grants?
