You know that I’m a big SciFi & Fantasy nerd. So, I’m probably talking about the Big Kahuna of the Kree civilization, but no. That would be The Supreme Intelligence. Well then, I probably mean the head of the Star Wars Empire? No, that’s Snoke, The Supreme Leader. There is no lack of Supreme this or that in our imaginary universes, and here I refer to the Starship Troopers storyline in which a Civics/History teacher at a Buenos Aires high school, Jean Rasczak, explains to his students that violence, the exercise of force, is the supreme authority from which all other authority flows. Sounds like RWNJ talk, right?
This week’s decision by judge Mathew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District Court of Texas requiring that the FDA withdraw its approval of the drug mifepristone is an example of the use of force – the authority of the federal bench in this case. The decision is interesting in that it is a flagrant departure from classical American jurisprudence which follows the Facts and the Law to arrive at its conclusions. Kacsmaryk clearly ignored the facts in favor of following what is properly regarded as junk science pushed by RWNJ ideologues of the Christian Right. Beyond that, he ignored precedent, the judicial intent behind the SCOTUS Dobbs decision, to let the legislatures decide, as well as the will of the people. And in so doing, he substituted his personal beliefs for the facts, the law, and the will of the American people – imposing his peculiar beliefs in fetal personhood as a substitute for all of these principles.
I expect that a higher court, if not the SCOTUS, will have something to say about his decision. I hope that they find his decision arbitrary, capricious and unfitting of a federal district court, but that is probably hoping for too much. The religious right is drunk with power, and there is little reason to expect that those who are exercising it will curb either their appetites or intoxication. I think that the only thing that is likely to force a course reversal is The Supreme Authority.
I do not expect this episode in American civic life to end well.
me neither….