A judge nominated to the bench by Donald Trump has become the first federal justice to approve a challenge to the right to contraception in the wake of the overturning of Roe. V. Wade.
Matthew Kacsmaryk, a judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, recently issued an opinion on the case of Deanda v. Becerra, which attacks Title X, a federal programme that allows for "comprehensive voluntary family planning services" to be readily available for anyone who may require them, including adolescents.
The plaintiff in the case, Alexander Deanda, argues that as he is raising his daughters as Christians, which teaches that unmarried children should "practice abstinence and refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage," the Title X program violates the constitutional right of parents to raise their children.
Deanda is now seeking to block Title X-funded programs from offering contraception to minors without them receiving parental consent beforehand.
The plaintiff is pushing forward with the case despite the fact his children haven't yet even sought any Title-X funded care, nor is he alleging that they may do so in the future.
In his December 8 opinion, Kacsmaryk ruled that Title X does violate the "constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children."
Kacsmaryk hasn't ordered the federal government to halt the program, but he has brought the argument forward and asked each party to submit their plans for what should happen next.
Deanda's legal team have already signaled they will seek to temporarily shut down Title X while the case is being resolved, which will hinder young people's ability to access reproductive care.
As noted by Vox's Ian Millhiser, Kacsmaryk's decision is "riddled with legal errors, some of them obvious enough to be spotted by a first-year law student."
One of the issues with Kacsmaryk ruling is that it contradicts a long-standing census among federal courts that parents don't have a constitutional right to target government programs providing contraceptive care.
The Constitution also doesn't allow challenges to federal programs where the plaintiff doesn't have what is known as "standing"—evidence a programme has harmed them in some way. As the Christian father in the case isn't arguing his daughters have been affected by Title X, or even that they hypothetically might be, Millhiser says the case doesn't have any standing and should have been rejected.
There is still a strong chance that Kacsmaryk's decision will be overturned either by the first appellate court or the Supreme Court, should it manage to make its way there. However, the ruling could leave the right for teenagers to gain access to birth control in limbo while the case is fought out in the courts.
The move also stoked fears that conservative judges may attempt to remove contraceptives as a constitutional right post Roe v. Wade in the same way red states across the country are implementing stricter accesses to abortions.
Who Is Matthew Kacsmaryk?
Kacsmaryk was nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas by president Trump in 2017 to replace the seat vacated by Mary Lou Robinson.
The Senate later confirmed his appointment in June 2019 by a 52-46 vote.
That same month, a coalition of 75 LGBT and allied groups wrote a letter to Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) calling for them to oppose the appointment of Kacsmaryk because of his anti-LGBT views.
"Kacsmaryk has challenged LGBT people's right to form families at all, and argued that the families that they have formed are less legitimate than other families," the letter states.
"He has denied in some cases that LGBT people really exist. His record reveals that he will be incapable of treating LGBT litigants fairly—no matter what body of law is at issue in the cases over which he may preside—because he does not acknowledge LGBT people as having a right to exist.
"Matthew Kacsmaryk is not the kind of judge that this country wants, needs or deserves."
Prior to this, Kacsmaryk earned his bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, from Abilene Christian University in 1999 and his Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in 2003.
From 2003 to 2008, he worked as an associate at the Dallas office of Baker Botts before working as a federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Texas until 2013.
Kacsmaryk was a deputy general counsel for the First Liberty Institute, a law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases, from 2014 to 2019. He is a member of the Federalist Society, a hugely influential nationwide organization of conservative lawyers.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
