Mon. Jul 8th, 2024

Texas Judge’s Abortion Pill Ruling Brings Awful 19th Century Law Back to Life<!-- wp:html --><p>REUTERS/File Photo</p> <p>Get more news and opinions in the twice-daily Beast Digest newsletter. Don’t miss the next big story, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/newsletters?newsletter=daily-digest&tdb_source=opinion&tdb_medium=top_article&campaign=IACTAT0422">sign up here</a>.</p> <p>The granting of a nationwide preliminary injunction invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone will dangerously deprive a safe means of abortion to millions of women. </p> <p>The opinion—authored by a Trump appointed conservative judge—is weakly reasoned and reveals the judge’s extremist views. At one point he analogizes abortions to being a form of eugenics—a view also espoused by<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/31/clarence-thomas-tried-link-abortion-eugenics-seven-historians-told-post-hes-wrong/"> Justice Clarence Thomas</a> who is cited in the opinion for this analogy. But lurking inside the opinion is an even more potentially dangerous effort by the judge to revive a nearly dormant 19th Century law—the Comstock Act.</p> <p><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/texas-judges-abortion-pill-ruling-brings-awful-19th-century-law-back-to-life">Read more at The Daily Beast.</a></p><!-- /wp:html -->

REUTERS/File Photo

Get more news and opinions in the twice-daily Beast Digest newsletter. Don’t miss the next big story, sign up here.

The granting of a nationwide preliminary injunction invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone will dangerously deprive a safe means of abortion to millions of women.

The opinion—authored by a Trump appointed conservative judge—is weakly reasoned and reveals the judge’s extremist views. At one point he analogizes abortions to being a form of eugenics—a view also espoused by Justice Clarence Thomas who is cited in the opinion for this analogy. But lurking inside the opinion is an even more potentially dangerous effort by the judge to revive a nearly dormant 19th Century law—the Comstock Act.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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