MSNBC’s Andrew Weissmann Spins Paranoid Conspiracy Theory to Explain Supreme Court’s 9-0 Abortion Decision
MSNBC’s Andrew Weissmann continues to fill his dishonorable role as a mendacious partisan who obscures rather than explains legal issues to his audience, this time spinning a paranoid conspiracy theory about a unanimous Supreme Court decision handed down on Thursday.
In FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the Court reversed a decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to bar mail-order prescriptions for mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug.
“The federal courts are the wrong forum for addressing the plaintiffs’ concerns about FDA’s actions,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh on behalf of all of his colleagues. “The plaintiffs may present their concerns and objections to the president and FDA in the regulatory process, or to Congress and the president in the legislative process.”
It is notable, if not surprising, that the Court — which is often described as corrupt and partisan by corrupt, partisan actors — ruled this way given the steady stream of attacks directed at it by Democrats and their allies in the media. As it turns out, the Court’s originalist majority’s choices hinge on legal issues, not policy preferences.
Thursday’s decision is just one more piece of evidence in support of this relatively self-evident truth. Consider that members of the originalist bloc often “flip” and vote in ways that please the left — Obergefell (gay marriage), Bostock (the LGBTQ community’s relationship of the 1964 Civil Rights Act), Sebelius (Obamacare) — while the progressive bloc rarely ever “flips,” especially on high-profile cases.
But the narrative is more politically potent than the truth, which is why Weissmann reacted to Thursday’s news not by walking back his past attempts to sow hysteria or even by expressing his pleased surprise, but by beclowning himself.
“A cynical person might think that the conservative Justices (who routinely ignore ‘standing’ doctrine when it suits them) did this to keep the entire issue of reproductive rights out of the election cycle (where vast majority reject what they are doing), so they can take a hatchet to them after November,” speculated Weissmann without presenting any evidence whatsoever for his theory.
A cynical person might think that the conservative Justices (who routinely ignore “standing” doctrine when it suits them) did this to keep the entire issue of reproductive rights out of the election cycle (where vast majority reject what they are doing), so they can take a… https://t.co/3Nn5s0bE1Z
— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) June 13, 2024
This reckless smear either speaks to Weissmann’s lack of legal insight or his willingness to mislead his audience. The Supreme Court has explicitly rejected the idea that its job is to address abortion from either a pro-life or pro-choice perspective.
In fact, that’s what its landmark decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was all about: Acknowledging the judiciary’s limited role and allowing the people to have a say in abortion policy through the legislative branch.
“Far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” wrote the much-maligned Justice Sam Alito in his majority opinion. “Our decision returns the issue of abortion to those legislative bodies, and it allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office.”
If the Court was going to use its power to advance the pro-life cause, legal issues be damned, it would have used the Dobbs case to do so. Instead, it surrendered the power to weigh in directly on the issue — power the progressive bloc claim to have, by the way — back to the people, as the constitutional order demands.
Individual cases that touch on abortion often have to do with discrete legal issues. Dobbs was a direct (and much-deserved) assault on Roe. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine was decided on standing grounds, but even if it had not been, then it would have come down to questions about regulatory law, not philosophical ones about “reproductive rights.”
Instead of weighing in on any of these issues, Weissmann is keeping himself busy shaking his fist at the clouds. He’s doubtlessly paid well to be one of MSNBC’s resident demagogues, but even that can’t possibly be worth debasing himself like this.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
