The Quickie: Senate Confirms Historic 100th Federal Judge Nominated by POTUS 

Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.

In today’s Quickie: Senate confirms historic 100th federal judge nominated by POTUS, bill to criminalize people seeking abortion introduced in KY, OK advances bill banning gender-affirming care for trans youth, and anti-abortion politicians double down on unpopular abortion stances. 

SENATE CONFIRMS HISTORIC 100TH FEDERAL JUDGE NOMINATED BY PRESIDENT: This week, the U.S. Senate confirmed its 100th federal judge nominated by President Biden. This outpaces the number of judges confirmed by the Senate under the previous two presidents during the same amount of time. The federal judges nominated and confirmed  are historically diverse: 

• 76 confirmed nominees are women. 
• 68 confirmed nominees are people of color, including more Black women confirmed to the circuit court judgeships than under all previous presidents combined, and more Asian and Indigenous women confirmed for federal judgeships than in any other administration.
• More public defenders have been confirmed to appeals courts than at any time in history, and the Biden administration has focused on nominating lawyers who have diverse employment experiences, including those who are civil rights, legal aid, and voting rights lawyers. 

Read more from the Washington Post and the New Republic. 

EXTREME BILL TO CRIMINALIZE PEOPLE SEEKING ABORTION INTRODUCED IN KENTUCKY: On Tuesday, anti-abortion politicians in Kentucky filed House Bill 300, an extreme bill that would criminalize pregnant people for seeking abortion care. All major medical organizations, including ACOG, AMA, and APHA, oppose criminalization because it would discourage people from seeking necessary medical care, severely impacting people’s health.

“Outrage is the only appropriate response to HB 300,” said Tamarra Wieder, Kentucky State Director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates. “Kentucky lawmakers are trying to criminalize pregnant people who seek abortion care, no matter the circumstances of their decision. These lawmakers only want to scare patients and push an extremist political agenda. Planned Parenthood will fight with everything we’ve got to defeat this cruel bill.” 

In November, Kentuckyians made their support for abortion rights clear by rejecting Amendment 2. Despite abortion already being banned in Kentucky, lawmakers are trying to further defy the will of people and strip them of their essential reproductive rights, and just this morning, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled to allow the state’s two abortion bans to remain in effect. 

Read more at AP and Louisville Courier Journal. 

OKLAHOMA ADVANCES BILL BANNING GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE FOR YOUTH: Yesterday, the Oklahoma Senate passed SB 613, a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for youth and criminalize providers for performing critical care for Oklahoman youth. The bill will now be debated by the Oklahoma House of Representatives. SB 613 is one of at least 15 bills introduced this session in the state attacking access to gender-affirming care, which can often be life-saving. 

“This is an egregious attack on transgender youth and their ability to access life-saving health care,” Emily Wales, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, said. “Oklahoma lawmakers will stop at nothing to deny people fact-based, expert medical care – which they know nothing about – to score cheap political points. We stand with the LGBTQIA+ community across Oklahoma and will fight these transphobic attacks, because trans youth and their families – not politicians – deserve to make their own health care decisions.”

Read more at KOSU, and read the full statement from Freedom Oklahoma, ACLU of Oklahoma, and Planned Parenthood Great Plains here.

ANTI-ABORTION POLITICIANS WANT TO MESS AROUND AND FIND OUT: Anti-abortion politicians just cannot read the writing on the wall: abortion rights are extremely popular and Americans want lawmakers to stop restricting their reproductive freedoms. As Jennifer Rubin notes in Washington Post, 

“Republicans’ extreme antiabortion stance cost them dearly in the midterms, especially among women, young people and college-educated voters. But rather than adjust course, they are doubling down.” 

Anti-abortion politicians have done it all since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June: introduced a national abortion ban and other bills to restrict abortion on the federal level, filed lawsuits to limit abortion access nationwide, introduced hundreds of pieces of anti-abortion legislation on the state level, and have gone on the record saying their 2024 strategy is to remain staunchly anti-abortion. After resounding victories in the 2022 midterms and poll after poll after poll confirming that the majority of Americans staunchly support abortion rights, Rubin asks: 

“Did Republicans pay any attention to the messages that voters sent them last November? It certainly doesn’t seem so. But Democrats sure did. Expect them to remind voters in 2024 about Republicans’ utter disdain for their constituents’ views.”

Read more at the Washington Post.