This excerpt is from a piece by Rakim Brooks that originally ran in Democracy Docket on April 1, 2024.
Remember, the only reason this mifepristone case reached the Supreme Court is because of Trump-appointed judges like Matthew Kacsmaryk, James Ho and Cory Wilson, all of whom had clear anti-abortion bona fides when they were confirmed to the bench. Indeed, it was their anti-Roe credentials that made them prime judicial candidates. So it’s no wonder that, after Dobbs, those judges and their conservative allies immediately seized the jurisprudential momentum to further restrict access to abortion. That is what they were put there to do.
As long as someone, anywhere in the United States, can receive a legal abortion — by procedure or medication — the campaign against reproductive freedom will continue, with the courts serving as the conservatives’ primary battleground. That’s the reality we have to reckon with, particularly after hearing Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito express willingness to resurrect the Comstock Act — an archaic 1873 “chastity law” that prohibited the mailing of “obscene materials,” including tools or drugs that could be used in an abortion — during oral arguments.
For all these reasons and more, it is therefore essential that we prioritize judges in much the same way the right has for decades. As I said at a Reproductive Freedom for All luncheon two weeks ago, we must tell President Joe Biden and our senators to nominate and confirm lawyers who have fought for reproductive freedom.