Ultimate Example of Judge-Shopping’: CNN Legal Analyst Blasts Texas Court’s Abortion Pill Ruling

A federal judge in Texas halted the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of an abortion pill 23 years after the agency gave the drug the green light.

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. Northern District of Texas stayed his order for seven days to give the Biden administration a chance to appeal.

Shortly after, Judge Thomas Rice of the U.S. Eastern District of Washington issued a contradictory order that prohibits the FDA from taking any action that would make the drug, mifepristone, less widely available

CNN chief legal analyst Elie Honig reacted to Kacsmaryk’s ruling soon after it was issued.

“This is a breathtaking example of judicial aggressiveness, both in terms of the scope and the breadth of this ruling,” he said. “Essentially what this one judge has done is to substitute his own scientific judgment for 20-plus years of scientific judgment by the FDA. He essentially says, ‘They didn’t do it right,’ even though this drug was approved 20-plus years ago.

Honig noted that though Kacsmaryk is one lone judge in northern Texas, his decision applies to the entire country, (though this became muddled after Rice’s contradictory decision),

“This is one judge in one of our 94 federal judicial districts who’s issuing this ruling, which purports to suspend this dry throughout the entire nation,” he continued. “This is the ultimate example of judge-shopping. It’s really one-stop judge shopping because by filing the lawsuit in this particular district, the plaintiffs here assured themselves – 100% – they would get this judge, Judge Kacsmaryk, who is very conservative, a Trump appointee. It’s a little bit of a glitch in the system, but he happens to be the only judge in that particular vicinage.”

The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, to be used in conjunction with another drug called misoprostol. Drug-induced abortions account for most abortions in the U.S., with the rest being done via surgical procedures.