The Texas judge appointed to the bench by Donald Trump who saw his ruling on the abortion drug Mifepristone "swatted" aside in a rare unanimous ruling by the conservative-majority Supreme Court now has to face more challenges to the drug and decide if he wants another ruling to be scrutinized.
According to a report from CNN, US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk now is faced with ruling on whether three states that want to ban the drug can do so in his courtroom this summer.
With the Supreme Court ruling that the doctors and anti-choice groups that sued over the drug had no standing to make the challenge, Kacsmaryk will have to make the determination over whether the state's case will suffer the same fate.
As CNN's John Fritze and Tierney Sneed wrote, "An immediate question for Kacsmaryk is whether the states can continue to do so in his court. Generally, parties must be able to justify filing lawsuits in a specific federal court," adding, "In the mifepristone case, Kacsmaryk’s initial ruling was notable not just for its sweeping nature but in how he embraced the anti-abortion movement’s sensational rhetoric about the procedure. Kacsmaryk’s decision on mifepristone was later narrowed by a federal appeals court to deal only with the subsequent steps the FDA took to make mifepristone easier to obtain. "
If Kacsmaryk rules those states cannot continue their lawsuit in his courthouse in Texas, the attorneys general will be forced to look for a friendly courthouse in another locale to file a similar challenge without the guarantee that they will find a judge as friendly to their case as the Texas judge.
According to veteran Supreme Court litigator Adam Unikowsky, the odds are slim of getting case back before the Supreme Court.
“They’re [the Supreme Court] leaving the door barely ajar for someone else to give it a shot,” before adding that the state's case “is still weak on standing.”
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