On Roe’s Anniversary, A Standard Refrain

My coworker Leila has already explained the problems with the recent decision by the Fifth Circuit overturning a district court’s block of key provisions of a Texas law forcing doctors to give women seeking abortions ultrasound information.

What Leila didn’t mention, however, was who wrote the decision: Chief Judge Edith Jones. And although I am as outraged as Leila by the decision, I’m not entirely surprised. We knew Judge Jones was no friend to Roe - her record since joining the Fifth Circuit in 1985 displays clear hostility to a woman’s right to decide whether to obtain an abortion (check out another one of her anti-Roe cases here).

So on this anniversary of Roe, I would like to pause and offer our standard refrain: judicial nominations matter!

The end. Thank you.