Confidence in the Supreme Court has plummeted since the conservative courts of the Trump years, polls show. But look deeper: The staffing and practices in some lower federal courts shouldn’t inspire confidence either. And the consequences of decisions made by judges in those dozens of courtrooms can be as far-reaching as those of the Supremes.

Case in point: The federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas, where on a Wednesday the lone judge for a sprawling, remote district was considering whether to ban an abortion pill used in more than half of all abortion pills nationwide. pregnancies in the country, including miscarriages.

By the time you read this,

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk

expected to issue may have issued that

preliminary injunction

all this week,

effectively ban the pill, even in states where abortion is legal, while the drug safety lawsuit plays out.

Whatever your opinion on abortion, you should be baffled by this lawsuit. It’s been more than 20 years and countless doses since the Food and Drug Administration tested and approved mifepristone as part of a two-drug abortion regimen. Since then, the agency has repeatedly re-approved it and mountains of medical records

have testified

its safety.

During Kacsmaryk’s hearing, the anti

–

abortion activists who took the case admitted that it would be unprecedented for a court to order the government to withdraw a long-approved drug from the market.

And yet the anti-abortion groups come second

–

guess the FDA scientists have reason to be optimistic that Kacsmaryk will side with them. After all, they chose this judge to hear their case, just as other conservative activists did during his four years on the bench, because of his obvious sympathy for their cause.

For right-wing forum shoppers, Kacsmaryk is one of the go to guys.

Like so many others picked for the federal bench by former President Trump, he is white, male, young only 39 when nominated for the job for life, the better he can rule for decades and be reliable, radical, conservative. He joined the Federalist Society while in law school, worked on Republican campaigns in Texas, including for Senator Ted Cruz, and joined the federal bench after being an attorney for a Christian religious freedom legal group, First Liberty Institute.

As his staunchly anti-abortion sister recently told the Washington Post about her big brother’s role in the abortion pill case, I feel like he was made for this. He’s exactly where he needs to be.

Trump certainly thought so. Spurred on by evangelicals, the Federalist Society and the equally right-wing Heritage Foundation, the former president had to nominate Kacsmaryk three times in three years before a Republican-controlled senate would finally confirm him, with a slim majority. Kacsmaryk’s views almost proved too much, even for some Republicans.

His affirmative hearings not only showed his advocacy against abortion, but also his views that LGBTQ people have mental disorders and that legalizing same-sex marriage would put the nation on a path to potential tyranny. Hed wrote that the pro-marriage movement that promotes marriage between a man and a woman should follow the lead of opponents of Roe vs. Wade: Play a long game and fight to win the case in 40 years to restore the traditional marriage.

It’s no surprise, then, that Kacsmaryk reportedly has a Clarence Thomas bobblehead on his desk. Judge Thomas, agreeing with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization destroying Roe last June suggested that the Supreme Court also reconsider constitutional protections for same-sex marriage, same-sex intimacy and birth control.

Kacsmaryk has twice spoken out against President Biden’s attempt to end Trump’s policy of staying in Mexico for asylum seekers. He also decided against a federal program that provides contraceptives to teenagers, say it violates the rights of parents. And he scrapped a Biden policy that health care providers must not discriminate against LGTBQ people, despite the Supreme Court’s finding that an anti

–

legal discrimination concerned those groups. Kacsmaryk began his disapproving opinion by quoting Judge Samuel

a

Alito

Jr

I don’t agree with that statement.

But the case of the abortion pill has generated the most controversy. Rightly so: it underlines how radically the nation has turned against women’s reproductive rights after half a century of Roe’s constitutional protection.

With the Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court threw the abortion law back to the states, “to the elected representatives of the people,” Alito wrote. Agreed, Judge Brett

m

Kavanaugh stated that judges would no longer rule on “those difficult moral and policy issues”.

That some conservatives

had

for decades

had

claimed was their holy grail: let the states decide. Red states are indeed in a hurry to impose almost total bans. According to the abortion rights advocate Guttmacher Institute, which tracks U.S. abortion laws, 24 states have or are likely to enact such bans (some are being taken to court).

But now against

–

Abortion activists want more of a national ban. With no hope of getting such a law passed by a Democratic president and a divided Congress, they have once again turned to the federal courts for the next best thing: a national-government ruling banning drug-induced abortion. So much for Alito and Kavanaugh’s

predictions. foreknowledge.

Reports from Wednesday’s hearing showed that Kacsmaryk, true to form, was seeking a way to support the anti-abortion prosecutors. Should he indeed conclude that the FDA and the medical profession have been wrong about mifespristone for nearly 23 years, it is a good bet that he will be upheld in the

crazy ultra

conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Texas. Then the matter goes to the Supreme Court, we know which way it goes.

And the judges wonder why they have a record disapproval rating of 58%, why so many Americans have come to view the judiciary as ideological rather than impartial and no less political than the other two branches of government.

It’s simple: nowadays the judiciary often is.

@jackiekcalmes