The Assembly of Religious Experts blocked Matthew Kacsmaryk's gonzo ruling that banned the distribution of mifepristone in most cases. Kacsmaryk's ruling was the clearest case of legislating from the bench I can think of. This zealot basically overruled two decades of FDA approval and medical practice because, well, he's a religious zealot and a thinks women should be vessels for men's sperm, I guess.
I'm not sure why they waited until Friday, but I wonder if Alito's dissent gives us a clue. He railed against the "shadow docket" (which is ironic given how the conservatives have used it in the past). I wonder if there isn't a majority who was willing to throw the whole thing out on standing.
The standing argument is a good one. The people who brought this suit have no reasonable claim that they were harmed by the FDA's ruling 20 years ago. They should not have been allowed to even bring the suit in the first place and overturning Kacsmaryk's ruling on those grounds would've allowed them to dodge the "moral" implications of allowing the drug to remain on the market.
Perhaps Roberts was trying to get a majority to throw it out using the shadow docket but he needed an extra day to convince Comey Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Instead, we got the narrower ruling.
Needless to say Clarence Thomas ruled against preserving access to the drug and didn't even deign to explain why. If it wasn't for Donald Trump, I think Thomas has a strong argument to be among the worst people this country has coughed up.
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