Abortion & Contraception Rights Under Attack

[LFC]

Jan 17, 2023 19:26:37 GMT goldenvalley said:

What? You don't think female cows and female humans are the same?  And no heifer needs book learnin' so why do human females need it!

Makes you start to wonderin' about just what goes on at that dairy farm of his.

[AnBr]

Jan 17, 2023 22:07:54 GMT LFC said:

Makes you start to wonderin' about just what goes on at that dairy farm of his.

Hey, what happens on the farm stays on the farm.

[LFC]

Kansas Voters: "Ease up on the abortion issue."

Kansans Republicans: "F*** off."

Kansas voters shocked the nation last year when they overwhelmingly rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have said there is no fundamental right to an abortion. But that hasn’t stopped Kansas Republicans from opening the 2023 legislative session by trying to further curtail abortion access anyway.

Just after the Republican-controlled state legislature convened last week, GOP leaders laid out an agenda that included additional restrictions on abortion and more funding for crisis pregnancy centers, which operate to dissuade people from getting abortions. They also identified the Kansas Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Hodes & Nauser v. Schmidt, which established a right to an abortion in the state constitution, as a key target.

They didn’t offer any details on what the additional abortion restrictions might be; the Kansas GOP and leadership in both legislative chambers did not respond to requests for comment. But abortion advocates are anticipating everything from a ban on abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy to more restrictions on abortion providers and abortion services offered via telemedicine.

Kansas already has some of the toughest restrictions nationwide short of an outright ban. Abortion currently remains legal up to 22 weeks of pregnancy and, after that, only in cases where the pregnant person’s health is at risk. There are also a host of other restrictions on the procedure, including parental consent requirements for minors and restrictions on insurance coverage. Still, it’s become a regional haven for those living in nearby states with even more restrictive policies.

Though some national Republicans called the results of last year’s referendum in Kansas a “wake-up call” at the time, it doesn’t seem like the Kansas GOP has seen it as such. Rather, Republicans in the state are digging in their heels, despite the fact that Kansans voted 59 to 41 percent to save their abortion rights.

“nti-abortion politicians either forgot how elections work or don’t care about the will of those they were elected to serve,” said Emily Wales, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes. “It seems to be the latter, because in the first week of session they have already doubled down on their plans to attack reproductive freedom.”

[goldenvalley]

Jan 18, 2023 22:21:38 GMT LFC said:

Kansas Voters: "Ease up on the abortion issue."

Kansans Republicans: "F*** off."

Kansas voters shocked the nation last year when they overwhelmingly rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have said there is no fundamental right to an abortion. But that hasn’t stopped Kansas Republicans from opening the 2023 legislative session by trying to further curtail abortion access anyway.

Just after the Republican-controlled state legislature convened last week, GOP leaders laid out an agenda that included additional restrictions on abortion and more funding for crisis pregnancy centers, which operate to dissuade people from getting abortions. They also identified the Kansas Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Hodes & Nauser v. Schmidt, which established a right to an abortion in the state constitution, as a key target.

They didn’t offer any details on what the additional abortion restrictions might be; the Kansas GOP and leadership in both legislative chambers did not respond to requests for comment. But abortion advocates are anticipating everything from a ban on abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy to more restrictions on abortion providers and abortion services offered via telemedicine.

Kansas already has some of the toughest restrictions nationwide short of an outright ban. Abortion currently remains legal up to 22 weeks of pregnancy and, after that, only in cases where the pregnant person’s health is at risk. There are also a host of other restrictions on the procedure, including parental consent requirements for minors and restrictions on insurance coverage. Still, it’s become a regional haven for those living in nearby states with even more restrictive policies.

Though some national Republicans called the results of last year’s referendum in Kansas a “wake-up call” at the time, it doesn’t seem like the Kansas GOP has seen it as such. Rather, Republicans in the state are digging in their heels, despite the fact that Kansans voted 59 to 41 percent to save their abortion rights.

“nti-abortion politicians either forgot how elections work or don’t care about the will of those they were elected to serve,” said Emily Wales, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes. “It seems to be the latter, because in the first week of session they have already doubled down on their plans to attack reproductive freedom.”

They raise lots of campaign $$$ on the abortion issue.  They figure the donors motivated by anti abortion will continue to give.  They've been doing it for 50 years and these folks are ever hopeful that they can change things.

[jackd]

They won't consider changing until they start losing elections.

[goldenvalley]

Apparently the Supreme Court's internal investigation revealed no evidence of who leaked the Dobbs opinion to Politico.  Hmmm,

LGM commenters had a lot of fun with this. Like:

--Scooby Doo version...Ginni Thomas is revealed under the mask of Chief Justice Robert

--George Santos leaked it...after he wrote it

--a friend of the justices named Stan DeLito 

--"Hey, I've got it.  Let's blame Ginsberg!" "Go home Brett. You're drunk."

[LFC]

Remember how they told us immediately after Dobbs that it was all about states' rights? Yeah, as predicted that didn't last long. Republicans are back to all out pushes for more abortion bans at both state and federal levels.

The Republican National Committee passed a resolution Monday urging party members at both the state and federal levels to pass the most aggressive anti-abortion legislation possible in the run-up to 2024.

It specifically points to heartbeat bills, which usually translate as six-week gestational bans — before most women know that they’re pregnant — and “fetal pain” legislation, premised on the anti-abortion myth that embryos and fetuses can feel pain far before they’ve developed the structures that would allow them to.

The resolution also blames Republicans’ historically weak midterms performance on candidates failing to push their anti-abortion bona fides hard enough.

“Instead of fighting back and exposing Democratic extremism on abortion, many Republican candidates failed to remind Americans of our proud heritage of challenging slavery, segregation, and the forces eroding the family and the sanctity of human life, thereby allowing Democrats to define our longtime position,” the resolution said.

Some have pointed to Republicans’ absolutist stance on abortion, which is out of step with the majority of the country that supports abortion access, as contributing to an unsuccessful midterms cycle headlined by anti-abortion extremists like Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Blake Masters in Arizona.

But the document, trumpeted by the anti-abortion organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, makes no attempts to moderate.

“The Republican National Committee urges Republican lawmakers in state legislatures and in Congress to pass the strongest pro-life legislation possible – such as laws that acknowledge the beating hearts and experiences of pain in the unborn – underscoring the new relics of barbarism the Democratic Party represents as we approach the 2024 cycle,” it said.

[LFC]

Here we go.

Nationwide Ban On Abortion Bill Could Come Soon

The renegade federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, who is a favorite venue for conservatives will soon be poised to issue a ruling on mifepristone:

Eighteen states already have restrictions on the pills, many of them as part of near-total bans on abortion. But a ruling from Kacsmaryk — an appointee of former President Donald Trump — could either cut off access to the drugs in the mostly Democratic-led states where they remain legal or reinstate rules mandating that patients only be able to receive them in-person from a physician. Kacsmaryk previously worked for a conservative group, First Liberty Institute, that brought cases aimed at restricting abortion access.

Yeah, no conflict of interest issues here.

[goldenvalley]

Feb 9, 2023 16:09:03 GMT LFC said:

Here we go.

Nationwide Ban On Abortion Bill Could Come Soon

The renegade federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, who is a favorite venue for conservatives will soon be poised to issue a ruling on mifepristone:

Eighteen states already have restrictions on the pills, many of them as part of near-total bans on abortion. But a ruling from Kacsmaryk — an appointee of former President Donald Trump — could either cut off access to the drugs in the mostly Democratic-led states where they remain legal or reinstate rules mandating that patients only be able to receive them in-person from a physician. Kacsmaryk previously worked for a conservative group, First Liberty Institute, that brought cases aimed at restricting abortion access.

Yeah, no conflict of interest issues here.

Biden seemed to say that he would veto any such thing.

I've been wondering if the anti abortion folks were surprised that abortions were increasingly performed via medication.  I'm pretty sure they were surprised to learn that married women with children had abortions and that abortions were performed for reasons other than "convenience" like because the fetus lacked vital internal organs. 

[LFC]

This is a decision by a wholly conflicted judge. There’s nothing for Biden to veto.

[LFC]

The pro-choice side has learned that to protect abortion rights, the best route is through the people. The anti-abortion side is clearly a minority (*cough* Kansas *cough, cough*) trying to force their religious beliefs on the rest of the nation so must be fought with numbers.

Ohio groups filed the text of their proposed ballot initiative Tuesday, aiming to enshrine the right to abortion in the state’s constitution.

They filed “The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety” with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R), hoping to put it to a vote later this year.

“Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion,” the text reads.

“The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care,” it continues.

The initiative would allow for abortion to be prohibited after fetal viability, but not if a physician determines that the procedure is necessary to “protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”

Two of the groups behind ballot initiative pushes — Protect Choice Ohio, created by Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, made up of groups including Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio — joined together last week to streamline the effort.

The former group was intent on getting the initiative on the ballot in 2023 from the outset.

“In 2023, we have nothing else going on,” Dr. Marcella Azevedo of Protect Choice Ohio told TPM in a recent interview. “Money-wise, it’s gonna be cheaper for a lot more resources.”

[goldenvalley]

In the meantime twenty states have formed a coalition to support reproductive rights.

The governors involved in the alliance hail from states with Democratic trifectas — such as New Jersey, Illinois and Michigan — as well as those with divided governments like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Other states participating are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.

The idea is for staff of the governors to meet at least once a month and for the governors to meet in person once or twice a year.

The alliance has secured at least six-figure totals in contributions to date, with major funding coming from the California Wellness Foundation, a large public health philanthropic institution in the state, along with other financial support from the Rosenberg Foundation, which provides grants for policies aimed at promoting racial and economic justice.

I'm not sure what monthly meetings in states that already support reproductive freedom will accomplish but I guess sharing information and resources is a good idea.

[LFC]

Banning abortion is something that does not have majority support in any state.

Christopher Ingraham
@_cingraham

The post-Dobbs era: there isn't a majority in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade in a single state. prri.org/research/abort

[pnwguy]

Just more human casualties of the anti-abortion zealots.

www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/01/1158364163/3-abortion-bans-in-texas-leave-doctors-talking-in-code-to-pregnant-patients

We just need a national ban and revocation of a woman's passport if she is pregnant!

[LFC]

Mar 1, 2023 20:00:35 GMT pnwguy said:

Just more human casualties of the anti-abortion zealots.

www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/01/1158364163/3-abortion-bans-in-texas-leave-doctors-talking-in-code-to-pregnant-patients

We just need a national ban and revocation of a woman's passport if she is pregnant!

The confusion and fear are features, not bugs.

[LFC]

The intentionally vague anti-abortion laws popping up in red states have Walgreens cowering. It's all about the uncertainty and the threats.

The nation’s second-largest pharmacy chain confirmed Thursday that it will not dispense abortion pills in several states where they remain legal — acting out of an abundance of caution amid a shifting policy landscape, threats from state officials and pressure from anti-abortion activists.

Nearly two dozen Republican state attorneys general wrote to Walgreens in February, threatening legal action if the company began distributing the drugs, which have become the nation’s most popular method for ending a pregnancy.

The company told POLITICO that it has since responded to all the officials, assuring them that they will not dispense abortion pills either by mail or at their brick-and-mortar locations in those states.

The list includes several states where abortion in general, and the medications specifically, remain legal — including Alaska, Iowa, Kansas and Montana. For example, Kansas’ law that patients only obtain the pills directly from a physician is blocked in court.

“There is currently complexity around this issue in Kansas and elsewhere,” said Fraser Engerman, Walgreens’ senior director of external relations.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 3, 2023 21:35:37 GMT LFC said:

The intentionally vague anti-abortion laws popping up in red states have Walgreens cowering. It's all about the uncertainty and the threats.

I am increasingly angry about companies and doctors cowering away from doing what they know is legal and good medicine out of fear of the angry mob.  The stories of women needing abortions for heartbreaking reasons who cannot get them in their home states are appalling.  All the Go Fund Me campaigns for getting these women out of the medieval states they live in so they can get what they choose and need is no possible substitute for good accessible care.

[LFC]

It's getting harder and harder for companies to walk a fine line. They are going to have to make a choice between the left, which will be more prone to regulate them for human safety but which represents most of the consumer spending in America, or the right, which is ramping up to be just as prone to regulate them just in a vindictive manner. Walgreen's tried to walk the line and it just cost them. Now they're saying they aren't actually walking that line. Uh, huh.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced the state would not renew a multi-million dollar contract with Walgreens after the giant pharmacy chain said it would not dispense abortion pills in some states. “California will not stand by as corporations cave to extremists and cut off critical access to reproductive care and freedom,” Newsom said in a statement.

“California is on track to be the fourth largest economy in the world and we will leverage our market power to defend the right to choose.”

California’s Department of General Services gave Walgreens formal notice on Wednesday that it was withdrawing from the planned renewal of an agreement set to take effect on May 1. That contract, which began in 2017, has allowed the state to buy specialty prescription drugs from America’s second-largest pharmacy retail chain. Those purchases were primarily made by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for incarcerated individuals.

Under this contract, Walgreens has received about $54 million from the state over the past eight years, including more than $11 million in 2022, according to the governor’s spokesperson, Brandon Richards.

The impending contract termination comes two days after Newsom vowed to cut ties with Walgreens — “or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk,” he wrote in a tweet.

The announcement was in response to a recent decision by Walgreens that it would not sell the abortion medication mifepristone by mail in 20 states, including some states where abortion remains legal, because conservative attorneys general have threatened to sue if sales continue.

The company, however, appeared to walk that back on Monday, saying that it would dispense mifepristone “in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so.”

Read more at: www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article272911670.html#storylink=cpy

[goldenvalley]

Mar 9, 2023 17:31:42 GMT LFC said:

It's getting harder and harder for companies to walk a fine line. They are going to have to make a choice between the left, which will be more prone to regulate them for human safety but which represents most of the consumer spending in America, or the right, which is ramping up to be just as prone to regulate them just in a vindictive manner. Walgreen's tried to walk the line and it just cost them. Now they're saying they aren't actually walking that line. Uh, huh.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced the state would not renew a multi-million dollar contract with Walgreens after the giant pharmacy chain said it would not dispense abortion pills in some states. “California will not stand by as corporations cave to extremists and cut off critical access to reproductive care and freedom,” Newsom said in a statement.

“California is on track to be the fourth largest economy in the world and we will leverage our market power to defend the right to choose.”

California’s Department of General Services gave Walgreens formal notice on Wednesday that it was withdrawing from the planned renewal of an agreement set to take effect on May 1. That contract, which began in 2017, has allowed the state to buy specialty prescription drugs from America’s second-largest pharmacy retail chain. Those purchases were primarily made by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for incarcerated individuals.

Under this contract, Walgreens has received about $54 million from the state over the past eight years, including more than $11 million in 2022, according to the governor’s spokesperson, Brandon Richards.

The impending contract termination comes two days after Newsom vowed to cut ties with Walgreens — “or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk,” he wrote in a tweet.

The announcement was in response to a recent decision by Walgreens that it would not sell the abortion medication mifepristone by mail in 20 states, including some states where abortion remains legal, because conservative attorneys general have threatened to sue if sales continue.

The company, however, appeared to walk that back on Monday, saying that it would dispense mifepristone “in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so.”

Read more at: www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article272911670.html#storylink=cpy

A little view from the CA perspective.  The Governor came out with a statement that the state wouldn't do business with Walgreens on Monday but did not actually specify what that meant.  This made some nonprofits who might have wanted to weigh in on this leery...the lack of detail made folks smell out a stunt.  And there was fear that Medicaid patients who fill prescriptions through that company would be cut off from doing that.  The actual detail wasn't released until a day or so later.   Governor should have specified this from the get go, but I suspect his office didn't know how Walgreens interacted with the State.

[LFC]

Michigan Democrats are protecting abortion rights. Gretchen Witmer seems pretty sharp.

Back in April, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with its Dobbs ruling and before Politico reported on the leaked draft majority opinion overturning Roe, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer began preparing Michigan for the inevitable.

Whitmer was one of a handful of governors who saw the writing on the wall after conservative justices all but confirmed they were ready to overturn the federal right to an abortion during oral arguments in Dobbs back in December 2021. As red state governors picked up on conservative justices’ signals and got to work pushing even-more-extreme but still unenforcible abortion bans after oral arguments, Whitmer, of course, did the opposite.

Knowing that Michigan would be one of at least 17 states where abortion would become almost instantly illegal if Roe were to fall due to a century-old law banning abortion still on the books in Michigan, Whitmer preemptively sued in April 2022 to block local prosecutors from charging anyone found to be in violation of Michigan’s 1931 law in an at-the-time still-hypothetical post-Roe world. Whitmer also formally asked the state Supreme Court to consider the right to an abortion under the state constitution and remove the 1931 law from the books.

Fast-forward to September 2022, just a few months into our current post-Roe America. A Michigan state court found the century-old law unconstitutional and blocked it from being enforced. After Democrats secured a trifecta for the first time in four decades in November — and Michigan voters approved a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to protect reproductive rights — Democratic Party leaders vowed to make the abortion ban go away for good.

And that leads us to today: by a 20-18 party line vote, the Michigan Senate approved a state House-passed bill to repeal the 1930s-era law that banned abortion in all cases except when the woman’s life was in danger. The measure also repealed the law’s sentencing guidelines.

Michigan Democrats celebrated the long-fought victory after sending the bill to Whitmer’s desk for her signature.

[LFC]

Bimboebert display her signature brand of stupidity and cluelessness.

Alex Cole
@acnewsitics

Her 17 year old son just got a 15 year old pregnant.

[LFC]

Here we go. Welcome to Texass.

A Texas man is suing three women under the wrongful death statute, alleging that they assisted his ex-wife in terminating her pregnancy, the first such case brought since the state’s near-total ban on abortion last summer.

Marcus Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general and architect of the state’s prohibition on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park. The lawsuit is filed in state court in Galveston County, where Silva lives.

Silva alleges that his now ex-wife learned she was pregnant in July 2022, the month after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and conspired with two friends to illegally obtain abortion-inducing medication and terminate the pregnancy.

The friends texted with the woman, sending her information about Aid Access, an international group that provides abortion-inducing medication through the mail, the lawsuit alleges. Text messages filed as part of the complaint seem to show they instead found a way to acquire the medication in Houston, where the two women lived.

A third woman delivered the medication, the lawsuit alleges, and text messages indicate that the wife self-managed an abortion at home.

The defendants could not immediately be reached for comment. Silva’s wife filed for divorce in May 2022, court records show, two months before the alleged abortion. The divorce was finalized in February. They share two daughters, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit relies heavily on screenshots from a group chat the ex-wife had with two friends seemingly seeking to help her terminate her pregnancy. Her friends expressed concern that Silva would “snake his way into your head.”

“I know either way he will use it against me,” the pregnant woman said, according to text messages attached to the complaint. “If I told him before, which I’m not, he would use it as try to stay with me. And after the fact, I know he will try to act like he has some right to the decision.”

“Delete all conversations from today,” one of the women later told her. “You don’t want him looking through it.”

The lawsuit alleges that assisting a self-managed abortion qualifies as murder under state law, which would allow Silva to sue under the wrongful death statute. The women have not been criminally charged. Texas’ abortion laws specifically exempt the pregnant person from prosecution; the ex-wife is not named as a defendant.

The legality of abortion in Texas in July 2022 is murky. The state’s trigger law, which makes performing abortion a crime punishable by up to life in prison, did not go into effect until August. But conservative state leaders, including Cain and Attorney General Ken Paxton, have claimed that the state’s pre-Roe abortion bans, which punish anyone who performs or “furnishes the means” for an abortion by up to five years in prison, went back into effect the day Roe v. Wade was overturned in June.

[LFC]

Intentionally shopped judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is doing something "unusual" in an abortion pill case he's presiding over and now the DOJ is involved. If there's one thing Republicans know how to do it's find judges to do their bidding.

For weeks, I have been constantly refreshing the online docket for the case that could take mifepristone, one of two key drugs used in medication abortion, off the market. And today, there have been some small but weird developments. 1/

First, until this morning, the most recent docket entry was an innocuous Feb. 28th order approving an out of state lawyer's request to appear in the case. But today, two things happened. 2/

My colleague noticed a DOJ trial lawyer inexplicably filed a notice of appearance when there is no publicly scheduled, upcoming hearing or conference. 3/

And when I yawned in response, she told me the weirder part: There is a missing entry on the docket. Usually, when the docket skips a numbered entry, it signifies a sealed filing. 4/

As far as I can tell, there are no other gaps in the numbering of the case's docket. And the public docket gives no indication that any filings to date were previously sealed and then unsealed. 5/

And that's when I noticed the second category of strange: Every lawyer who has appeared on the docket as counsel for amici, as opposed to counsel for the actual parties to the suit, has had their electronic notifications shut off. Why? "[T]o restrict access to sealed filings."

Collectively, this suggests to me 1) there is a new, sealed filing in the mifepristone case; and 2) something about what's under seal caused a DOJ lawyer to formally enter the case. Could there have been a hearing or conference walled off from public view? 7/

And if so, why? We're working to find out; watch this space. 8/

[LFC]

The abortion pill case is beginning to stink even more. Apparently Judge Kacsmaryk suddenly doesn't believe in transparency anymore. This has become conservative SOP, where you move to institute your unpopular personal agenda while not taking credit/blame for it. Another prime example was Republicans playing the victim over their decades long attempts to destroy Social Security and Medicare.

Texas judge ignores his own rules to keep mifepristone case moves hidden from public
The news in The Washington Post's bombshell report conflicts with the principles behind Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk's own court requirements.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk doesn’t like information about the cases taking place in his court hidden from the public — except for when he wants the information to be hidden from the public.

Kacsmaryk warns people in his court that he “heavily disfavors” sealing matters in cases before him because of the “public’s right to know” — standards that he doesn’t appear to apply to himself.

In that situation, as The Washington Post reported on Saturday night, Kacsmaryk will schedule status conference calls with parties off the public docket, will hold such conferences off the public docket, will schedule hearings but keep the scheduling order off the public docket when the decision is made, and will ask the parties not to share relevant information with the public (again without noting that request on the public docket as an order).

All of those revelations come from the Post’s article about the still-undocketed upcoming Wednesday injunction hearing in the challenge to the FDA’s longstanding mifepristone approval and more recent decision ending the “in-person dispensing requirement” for the drug. The medication abortion challenge has gotten substantial attention in recent months, including here at Law Dork, where it was reported that an injunction hearing was expected. Any time after Wednesday’s hearing, Kacsmaryk could rule on the plaintiffs’ request — although it should be noted that some experts have questioned the extent of Kacsmaryk’s authority in the case.

Despite the substantial public interest in the case, Kacsmaryk has tried to operate what is in effect a secret court to move the case forward for the past several days — moves that have been criticized on their face in the wake of the Post’s reporting.

The moves also run counter to the principles made clear in Kacsmaryk’s own “Judge Specific Requirements,” as detailed on his page on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas’s website.

“The Court ‘heavily disfavors sealing information placed in the judicial record’ and discourages such requests,” the Kacsmaryk’s requirements state.

Going further, Kacsmaryk’s requirements highlight the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s rulings that recognize “the public’s right to know” about what’s going on in our courts, requiring litigants to explain — with signed declarations — why “the risks of disclosure” would “outweigh” that right of the public to know what’s happening in court. In order to even consider sealing anything on his docket, Kacsmryk requires litigants to “explain that no other viable alternative to sealing exists.”

And yet, when it comes to his own decisions to hide entire portions of cases before him from the public, Kacsmaryk appears to believe that he can do so with no public notice that such hidden proceedings are even taking place.

[goldenvalley]

The Texas guy suing people for aiding his ex-wife in getting an abortion is probably the fine upstanding sort of guy who would deny paternity if ex-wife went ahead with the pregnancy and sued for child support.