UPDATE: Supreme Court Justice Kagan Ghosts AZ AG Brnovich Re: Arizona Abortion Case

 Remember the holiday season? Yeah, me neither. Seems like forever ago.

On December 10, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich's office asked the U.S. Supreme Court to impose a stay that would permit part of Arizona's most recent anti-abortion law to go into effect while the 9th Circuit considers the merits. The part of the law which could go into effect would outlaw abortions sought solely because the fetus has a genetic abnormality.

That Motion was assigned to the Supreme Court Justice assigned to handle such matters originating from courts in the 9th Circuit. Justice Elena Kagan. Typically, those are emergency matters ruled on quickly. Kagan asked the plaintiffs (represented by the ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights) to respond by Dec. 21 - which they did. Brnovich then submitted an unrequested Reply the following day.

Since then, crickets.

I am not going to speculate on the possible reasons for Justice Kagan's silence, although many thoughts come to mind.

U.S. District Court Judge Doug Rayes did not care to, either. He is the one who initially halted that portion of the law from going into effect, and he recently told the parties he is not going to stop the entire case while waiting for the 9th Circuit and/or the Supreme Court to rule on the so-called "Reason Regulation".

The parties are thus proceeding to begin the discovery process on both that and the "Personhood Provision", and have finished briefing the state's appeal in the 9th Circuit. (The Personhood Provision is currently in effect.)

This article was reported by AZ Law founder Paul Weich. Paul is currently running for a seat in Arizona's House of Representatives.

"AZ Law" includes articles, commentaries and updates about opinions from the Arizona Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court, as well as trial and appellate courts, etc. AZ Law is founded by Phoenix attorney Paul Weich, and joins Arizona's Politics on the internet. 

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