Republican Attorneys General to Court: We Demand More Pregnant Teens

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Three state Republican Attorneys General filed a complaint in federal court on October 11 arguing that their states have a right to pregnant teenagers and that right is being violated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The case is one of many ongoing lawsuits targeting mifepristone, one of two drugs used in the most common abortion medication regime in the United States. (When folks say “abortion pills,” they’re usually talking about mifepristone and misoprostol.) The FDA approved mifepristone for abortion and miscarriage management decades ago, and last year, allowed mifepristone to be sent by mail, dispensed online, or at pharmacies.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, and Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador—all Republicans—take issue with this. Abortion access decreases teen pregnancy, and they seem to think that is a bad thing.
“Remote dispensing of abortion drugs by mail, common carrier, and interactive computer service is depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers in Plaintiff States,” the attorneys allege in the complaint, which was filed before forced birth enthusiast Judge Matt Kacsmaryk in the Northern District of Texas’s Amarillo Division. They claim that decreased births constitute “a sovereign injury to the state in itself,” and causes downstream injuries like “losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding if their populations are reduced.” In other words, uteri are state slush funds, and girls owe the state reproduction once they are capable of it.

States exist to serve people, not the other way around. But in order for courts to hear a case, would-be plaintiffs need to show that they experienced an actual injury that the party they’re suing caused, and that a court can fix. A personal dislike of somebody else taking medicine is not a legitimate grievance. So the states are trying to show that they are entitled to the population growth and accompanying funds that pregnant minors would produce, and the FDA is getting in the way of that. In my expert legal opinion, this is deeply gross and weird.
The ick factor only intensifies in some of the other arguments the Attorneys General make. The complaint also says that each of the states is “the legal parent or guardian of many minor girls of reproductive age”—a reference to girls in state custody, like foster care or juvenile detention. For those girls, they argue, the state is a stand-in for parents. And as parents, they claim, they have a right to consent to their children’s medical care, which is apparently nullified if teen girls in foster care can “obtain abortion drugs online by mail all on their own.” Under the state’s theory, it can separate children from their actual parents, declare itself their father now, and deem a daughter’s pregnancy her daddy’s prerogative.
Bailey, Kobach, and Labrador’s argument treats teenagers as breeding stock. The complaint is shocking in its brazenness. But it is a natural outgrowth of the conservative legal movement’s efforts to subordinate women: Girls choosing not to give birth is wrong, and men can go to court to set it right.
 
I had to check that the above article didn't come from the Onion or the Babylon Bee.

Teenage boys can celebrate that kind of reasoning. Maybe those Republican AGs hope they will register as Republicans when 18. What next? Republicans change their minds and decide it's a bad idea to ban porn, including even in schools? It wouldn't promote sexual arousal. Of course, perish the thought to teach or promote birth control, along with STD prevention.
 
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I was surprised to see Kansas on the list since they have state constitutionally protected abortion as of 2022. Guess since they couldn't force pregnancy to go to term, they'll try to force more kids into the hard choice.

What's next, state laws against the church teaching abstinence? That can impact birth rates, so it would cause "harm" to the state by their line of thinking.

Side note/question.
Why do Kansas, Missouri and Idaho need to file a case vs federal gov agency in Amarillo? Federal laws are supposed to be challenged in DC. There is a case in front of the Supreme Court on Judge shopping like this right now.

"Whether venue for challenges by small oil refineries seeking exemptions from the requirements of the Clean Air Act's Renewable Fuel Standard program lies exclusively in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit because the agency’s denial actions are "nationally applicable" or, alternatively, are "based on a determination of nationwide scope or effect." " -EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC
 
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