Following their preferred candidate getting absolutely blitzed in a swing-state judicial election due to his anti-abortion extremism, conservatives are now trying to argue that they need to pivot to better messaging on abortion.
There are a whole host of reasons why this won't work, starting with the fact that their favored "moderate", "compromise", "good message" alternative is Lindsey Graham's proposed nationwide compulsory women-maiming law. But another reason why it won't work is that the Republican Party cannot control the behavior of its own membership -- most notably, those in the GOP's YOLO Joker caucus (federal judiciary division) -- who insist on nothing short of the absolute most draconian limits on reproductive care imaginable:
A federal judge in Texas blocked U.S. government approval of a key abortion medication Friday, siding with abortion foes in an unprecedented lawsuit and potentially upending nationwide access to the pill widely used to terminate pregnancies.
The highly anticipated ruling puts on hold the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a medication first cleared for use in the United States in 2000. The ruling will not go into effect for seven days to give the government time to appeal.
U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a nominee of President Donald Trump with long-held antiabortion views, agreed with the conservative groups seeking to reverse the FDA’s approval of mifepristone as safe and effective, including in states where abortion rights are protected.
On the one hand, Republicans need to find a way out of the abortion trap. On the other hand, unaccountable hack judges in Texas are banning abortion medication nationwide based on completely spurious, results-oriented reasoning, guaranteeing that the GOP's forced labor agenda stays front and center in all of its extreme, uncompromising splendor indefinitely.
The Texas injunction now is paired with a dueling injunction from a district court in Washington, which forbids any alteration by the FDA to the status quo (at least in the plaintiff states in that litigation; the judge declined to make his injunction nationwide). This means the case almost certainly is headed to the Supreme Court sooner rather than later. Will the Court actually follow the law for once, or will we get another (to borrow from Josh Blackman) "epicycle" as rule of law bends itself to satisfy the whims of anti-abortion extremists cloaked in Article III garb? Stay tuned.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for referring to their agenda as "forced labor". I've been using similar terminology (pro FORCED labor) for quite a while. "Pro-life" is obviously wrong, and while "pro-birth", which I've seen a number of times, more closely approximates the truth it just doesn't go far enough.
ReplyDeleteIt's long been clear that, despite all their loud posturing about being "pro-life", their real agenda has been about the subjugation of women. They obviously don't even care about the birth of the fetus. For example, the recent tragedy of a woman being forced to risk giving birth to a child which had already been diagnosed in utero as failing to form a brain thus being unable to survive past birth.
I feel like "pro forced labor" is not only far more accurate, but also resonates correctly with their general attitude toward economic matters.
Economic concerns are their primary basis for all their positions including their stand on this subject.