GOP, beware. Abortion politics are firing up both sides

Remember how conservatives used to decry “judicial activism?”? As I recall, that was before they began to see an advantage in some judicial activism of their own.

In its simplest definition, judicial activism describes how a justice approaches judicial review. It refers to judges who overreach beyond their sworn responsibility to interpret the Constitution and instead decide cases based on their personal agendas.

A lot of people on the anti-choice side of our neverending abortion debate accused the Supreme Court of activism in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

And a lot of people accused the high court of activism last year with its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that returned to the states the power to regulate any aspect of abortion not protected by federal law.

Now nine months after the Supreme Court returned the right to have an abortion to “the people’s elected representatives,” some of the people’s unelected federal judges seem to keep taking it back in dueling judicial decisions.

Particularly notable — or notorious — recently is Matthew Kacsmaryk, a federal judge in Texas who blocked the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used to end pregnancies in the first 10 weeks.