Well, we have at least 48 more hours of #mifepristone FDA approval.
This is a weird move from SCOTUS, and with this court and this case in particular, I have no ungodly idea what it means.
The Court remains the judicial branch of the Republican Party. However, this mifepristone case pits two important conservative values against each other: oppressing women versus protecting the rights of huge corporations.
It’s honestly a toss-up.
This case is a mess, with the FDA's delays throwing the normal legal process into chaos, so the Court is likely looked deeply into the practical results of breaking from the normal rule to make a special exemption for this case.
It's not that weird when you realize just how off the rails this situation is.
The administration should have resolved all of this already, but it didn't. So the Court is trying to figure out how best to pick up the pieces it's been handed.
@volkris Making an exception in this case to uphold the truly incoherent lower court opinions would be a truly psychopathic response with no basis in history or precedent.
The fact that they didn't simply find the plaintiffs lack standing in the first place is mind boggling. But this court does not act in good faith or give a single fuck about the rule of law, so here we are. Twisting ourselves into pretzels to find more ways to oppress women.
One issue is, do you simply let the executive branch off the hook for violating the law? Do we just throw accountability out the window so easily?
To simply punt the case based on lack of standing is itself no small matter, since that sort of thing *even if correct* is better handled through the full, but time consuming, Supreme Court argument process.
The lower court cited precedents, and the problem here is that the FDA twisted things such that precedents applied in unpredictable ways. That's how it's worked its ways through layers of reviews by now.
This is one huge reason we should not look to courts to fix issues that the other two branches caused.
@volkris If you read the lower court opinions and found any parts of them valid, honestly, this isn't worth discussing with you. They were incoherent dribble that twisted every case they relied on to come to truly unprecedented and absurd conclusions.
Also, standing is a constitutional requirement. It gives the right wingers cover, but it's hardly punting. And the lower court standing analyses made absolutely no sense. Order more briefing on it, sure. But this is insane.
Multiple lower courts disagree with you, but setting that aside, here's a question:
What do you think of the claim that the FDA delayed the proceedings for years? Is it false? Is it a misreading of the law? Specifically, what issue do you take with that core part of the dispute?
@volkris Utterly irrelevant to the merits.
Yep, but we're not at the merits phase of this court proceeding.
And again, the administration could fix all of this since the mess was caused by executive branch processes.
So, instead we're going to wind through the court proceedings, taking time and accepting the uncertainty.
