Supreme Court’s abortion pill ruling puts new focus on conservative Trump judge in Texas

The Supreme Court’s decision this week rebuffing an effort to restrict access to mifepristone is unlikely to be the final word on the abortion pill.

The Supreme Court’s decision this week rebuffing an effort to restrict access to mifepristone is unlikely to be the final word on the abortion pill – and the next person to speak will almost certainly be a Trump-appointed judge in Texas at the center of the controversy. US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk will have to decide later this summer if three conservative states that want to continue the fight against the drug can do so in his court. The decision is one of several in coming weeks that will determine whether – and if so, how quickly – the case against mifepristone makes it back to the Supreme Court. Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee who previously worked for a Christian legal advocacy group, drew national attention last year by invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s two-decade-old approval of mifepristone, a sweeping decision that would have removed the drug from the market entirely. Now, both sides in the abortion debate are gearing up for the case to return to his Amarillo courtroom. “This fight isn’t over,” said Carrie Flaxman, a senior legal advisor at Democracy Forward who has long represented reproductive rights groups. “Access to this medication very much remains at risk.” A unanimous Supreme Court on Thursday swatted away the current challenge to mifepristone access without reaching the merits of the case. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a member of the court’s conservative wing, wrote that the anti-abortion doctors and groups that sued over the drug didn’t have standing because they were not injured by its use. But the court’s decision left open the possibility that some other entity might be positioned to challenge the steps the Food and Drug Administration took in 2016 and 2021 to loosen certain limits on the drug. Those actions included allowing mifepristone to be mailed to patients without a doctor’s visit and allowing it to be used longer in a pregnancy.