WASHINGTON (AP) — A Texas judge who sparked a legal firestorm with an unprecedented ruling halting approval of the nation’s most common method of abortion is a former attorney for a religious liberty legal group with a long history pushing conservative causes.U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, on Friday ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. His ruling, which doesn’t take immediate effect, came practically at the same time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, essentially ordered the opposite in a different case in Washington. The split likely puts the issue on an accelerated path to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kacsmaryk, a former federal prosecutor and lawyer for the conservative First Liberty Institute, was confirmed in 2019 over fierce opposition by Democrats over his record opposing LGBTQ rights. He was among more than 230 judges installed to the federal bench under Trump as part of a movement by the Republican president and Senate conservatives to shift the American judiciary to the right.
He’s the sole district court judge in Amarillo — a city in the Texas panhandle — ensuring that all cases filed there land in front of him. And since taking the bench, he has ruled against the Biden administration on several other issues, including immigration and LGBTQ protections.
Interest groups of all kinds have long attempted to file lawsuits before judges they s …
Abortion pill order latest contentious ruling by Texas judge
