Ketanji Brown Jackson Omits ‘Woman’ in Abortion Opinion: ‘Pregnant Patients’

Supreme Court Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson declined to use the word “woman” in an opinion Thursday about an Idaho abortion law, preferring instead to use the term “pregnant patients,” even though the statute uses “woman.”

As Breitbart News reported, the Court in Moyle v. U.S. dismissed an appeal by the State of Idaho against a lower-court ruling that found the Biden administration’s interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986 (EMTALA) overrode an Idaho state law preventing abortions from being performed on a “pregnant woman” except to save her life. Federal policy is that abortions are required to be performed if necessary to stabilize a patient.

The Court vacated a stay by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit against the lower court’s decision. As Breitbart News’ Katherine Hamilton noted, “Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, along with liberal-leaning Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, voted to dismiss the case and vacate the stay. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote an opinion in favor of vacating the stay but objected to dismissing the case. Conservative-leaning Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas dissented.”

In her opinion, Jackson argued that “healthcare providers ‘have been all but paralyzed by legal uncertainties,’ placing
pregnant patients at risk while they are waiting to be transferred out of State to receive the care they need” (emphasis added). As Jordan Boyd of The Federalist noted, “The justice who was nominated to the Supreme Court based on her race and sex refused for the second time in her short high court career to acknowledge women.”

Justice Jackson famously refused, at her 2022 confirmation hearing, to say what a “woman” is, telling Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that “I’m not a biologist.” It was a hint at her likely embrace of radical transgender ideology.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.