But so many of those decisions that are handled by the district courts are merely procedural matters or they are matters that terminate there. The federal district courts have an army of judges, every one of them a United States federal judge. And so, one is probably not very far from you, within something like 100 miles of you in most parts of the United States and perhaps even much closer. Because as you think about the lower level of the federal district courts, you have the entire population of the United States, defined by geography by the way, as you're looking at a map of the United States, you have districts and in every one of those federal districts, there is a district court, a federal district court. Well, that's an interesting tale and it's one that is, I'm going to guess, more interesting than even you think. A third question is, what exactly is the difference between these district courts, the circuits, and the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court? How does a case actually get from one jurisdiction to another? Is it legitimate in that it carries the force of law? The answer to that would be yes. That is not what the founders designed this court to do. It was not foreseen that the federal judiciary would be handling these kinds of cases, would be deciding these huge moral issues. The second question is, is that legitimate or not? Well, in our constitutional system, this was not foreseen. You're looking at several decades now, particularly going back to the late 1950s and then moving forward until the present day, so many of these issues are now being decided by courts. Question number one, why are so many of these issues being decided by federal courts? The answer to that is because there is no adequate political consensus nor is there adequate political courage in the United States Congress to legislate these matters.Īnd so, you're not looking at a pattern of just a few weeks, or a few months, or a few years. Sadly, that is where so many of these issues now arrive. But just thinking about this, let's just understand that we are looking at one of the central dramas of American moral life now being played out in the courts, in the federal courts. And so, we have at least a very good indication of the thinking of the court as this case will arrive there. The Supreme Court allowed the legislation to go into force. It was there in a preliminary fashion when pro-abortion forces tried to block the bill from ever going into force. The Texas case will get there and it's going to be really interesting to see what the district court does as the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals sitting in New Orleans, Louisiana, that's where the Texas case is now headed, it's going to be very interesting to see how fast that court acts, and then upon that decision, how fast the case gets to the Supreme Court of the United States. And that's going to be coming up before the court for oral arguments on December the 1st. And right now, the big decision is probably not hanging on this Texas case, but rather on a case from Mississippi. They're going to be made by the Supreme Court of the United States, the big decisions. federal district court judges, they are finally not going to be made by judges on the U.S. It needs to get there because the final decisions on these issues are not going to be made by U.S.
It needs to get there, inevitably, it would arrive there. But this then fast tracks, it ricochets the case into the appellate courts, and that's where it needs to be. district court judge who would deliver an injunction against the Texas legislation. We expected, at some point, pro-abortion forces to find a friendly U.S. What took place in that federal district court on Wednesday in Texas is exactly what we had expected to take place. And in one sense, it's an extremely predictable story. It was expected but it is still incredibly noteworthy that on Wednesday, a federal district court judge in Texas blocked the enforcement of the Texas ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.