A blog on US politics, Math, and Physics… with occasional bits of gaming

Conservatives injuring themselves by banning mifepristone

A District Court judge (Kacsmaryk) ruled that a handful of doctors *might*, one day, have to help someone who had a bad reaction to mifepristone, despite well-documented expert analyses that it's quite safe; and that mifepristone should therefore be banned nationally. This flies in the face of both medical science and US precedent.

If SCotUS allows this ban to stand, all guns and bullets could be banned because someone *might* one day be shot with them. Only weapons incapable of causing harm would be legal under Kacsmaryk's reasoning.

If SCotUS allows this ruling to stand, then judges are overriding expert opinion on a medicine's safety. There's no particular reason this wholesale dismissal of facts and statistics should be limited to the medical field. One might as well argue (without evidence) that the records kept by banks are possibly inaccurate, and that Elon Musk's assets (or Donald Trump's or Mitch McConnell's or anyone else you care to name) should be frozen until they can be fully investigated by someone with a historical interest in taking those funds for himself.

The 5th Circuit and Supreme Court erred in not immediately striking down Kacsmaryk's decision: They are undermining their own reputation as supposedly-neutral arbiters of law, and they are undermining the GOP politically & financially.

This is not because Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas and Kavanaugh are "woke" liberals. It's the opposite: They've cocooned themselves so much in right-wing talking points (conspiracy theories which they were _appointed_ to support) that they're unable or unwilling to understand the desires of the US electorate. This rot is common throughout the modern Republican party. The only question is how much suffering they're going to inflict before they decide "We the people" deserve to influence the government.















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