Life was handed another victory during Holy Week thanks to another judge appointed by former President Donald Trump. 

It was thanks to Trump's nomination of three conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices - Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-Barrett - that the issue of whether or not abortion ought to be legal has been returned to the people and their state legislators.

Now, thanks to a Trump-appointed federal judge - U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for Northern Texas - it will soon be harder to carry out chemical abortions, that is, those abortions that use drugs to terminate the pregnancy.

And, Kacsmary issued his ruling, during Holy Week, specifically on Good Friday - the day when Christians remember Jesus's death on the cross.

The ruling

The case was brought by a number of anti-abortion doctors and anti-abortion groups. They have taken issue with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval, in 2000, of the abortion drug mifepristone.

The issue that they have is with the approval process. They argue that the approval process failed to adequately take into consideration certain safety aspects of mifepristone and that, therefore, the FDA's approval of the drug was improper.

In conjunction with the filing of their lawsuit, the anti-abortion doctors and groups also asked the court for some preliminary relief. They specifically asked the court to stop the sale of mifepristone until a final decision on the merits is reached.

Kacsmaryk, in his Friday ruling, did just that: he granted the preliminary relief, which halts the sale of the drug.

For pro-life individuals, this is welcome news. But, it has to be remembered that this is only a preliminary ruling - it is not a ruling on the ultimate merits of the case, on whether or not the FDA's approval process was proper.

What now?

In addition to the fact that Kacsmaryk only issued a preliminary ruling, Kacsmaryk also gave the administration of President Joe Biden seven days to decide whether or not to appeal the preliminary ruling before that preliminary ruling will take effect, stopping the sale of mifepristone.

Some of the more radical Democratic lawmakers - such as U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D-NY) - have argued that Biden ought to just ignore the ruling and continue to sell mifepristone.

But, it appears that Biden is not going to do that. Instead, Biden has indicated that he will appeal Kacsmaryk's preliminary ruling.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said:

The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the decision of the District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA and will be appealing the court’s decision and seeking a stay pending appeal. Today’s decision overturns the FDA’s expert judgment, rendered over two decades ago, that mifepristone is safe and effective. The Department will continue to defend the FDA’s decision.

It is unclear when the appeal will be heard.