Monthly Archives: May 2023

By Milan Perera, Arts Critic Columnist

Presenting complex topics of science to the general public is no mean feat. There has been a long line of brilliant scientific minds who took up the mission to bring science to the masses; Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Richard Dawkins, Martin Rees and the list goes on. A young scientist who has earned his stripes into this hallowed hall of science writers is the University College London (UCL) based geneticist Adam Rutherford who has been writing on the intricacies of genetics.

His latest title on paperback (February 2023), Control, takes the readers on a less travelled path to demonstrate how science was weaponised by totalitarian regimes, and how it was utilised to legitimise racism.

For Rutherford, this is no abstract project as he is an alumni and a lecturer of an institution widely considered as the crucible of what is loosely known as eugenics. In 1993, Rutherford arrived at the Galton Laboratory, named after the founding father of eugenics for his undergraduate studies.

Francis Galton (1822- 1911) was a colossus of science who exerted an enormous influence on various branches of science from social Darwinism, behavioural science and meteorology. Rutherfords treatment of the subject is both compelling and engaging where he does not drown the average reader with a tsunami of jargons.

So, what is eugenics? Eugenics, a concept that gained prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was believed to be a scientific approach to improving the genetic quality of the human population. However, history has revealed that eugenics was not just a scientific endeavour, but a deeply flawed and morally reprehensible ideology that was used to justify racism and discrimination.

The term eugenics was coined by the above mentioned Sir Francis Galton, in 1883. Galton believed that by selective breeding and controlling reproduction, it was possible to improve the genetic makeup of the human population, leading to the development of a superior race. This concept was based on the flawed idea that certain traits, such as intelligence and moral character, were hereditary and could be passed down from one generation to another.

The eugenics movement gained traction in various countries, including the United States, Canada, and Germany, and was supported by influential scientists, policymakers, and intellectuals. Proponents of eugenics argued that by promoting reproduction among those deemed fit and restricting or preventing reproduction among those considered unfit, the human race could be improved.

One of the most disturbing aspects of eugenics was its role in legitimising racism. The ideology of eugenics was often used to justify discrimination against certain racial and ethnic groups, particularly those considered inferior or undesirable. Pseudo-scientific theories were propagated to support the idea that certain races or ethnicities were genetically inferior, and thus should be prevented from reproducing in order to protect the purity of the superior race.

In the United States, for example, eugenics was used to justify policies such as forced sterilisation of people deemed unfit to reproduce, including those who were poor, disabled, or from marginalised communities. These policies disproportionately targeted people of colour and were based on the false belief that some racial groups were inherently inferior and needed to be controlled or eliminated for the betterment of society.

But, above all, the most chilling manifestation of eugenics was unleashed by the Nazis during World War II that led to the Holocaust which claimed the lives of six million Jews. The Nazis, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, not only embraced the concept of eugenics but used it as a central pillar to legitimise their racist and discriminatory ideologies. The Nazis developed their own version of eugenics, which they referred to as racial hygiene, and used it to justify their policies of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the pursuit of a so-called master race.

The Nazi regime believed in the superiority of the Aryan race, which they considered to be a pure and superior race of people of Germanic origin. They sought to protect and promote this race by eliminating what they considered to be inferior races, such as Jews, Romani people, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other marginalised groups. They used eugenic principles to justify their genocidal policies and to promote the idea of racial purity.

The legacy of the Nazis' misuse of eugenics to legitimise racism is a dark and painful reminder of the dangers of pseudoscience and unethical applications of scientific concepts. It serves as a stark warning of the need for ethical conduct in scientific research and the importance of vigilance against ideologies that seek to use science to justify discrimination, racism, and other forms of oppression.

In today's world, inclusivity and diversity should be at the forefront of scientific research. It is essential to recognise the inherent value and dignity of ALL human beings, regardless of race, ethnicity, or any other characteristic. Diversity in scientific research promotes innovation, fosters a broader understanding of complex issues, and ensures that the benefits of scientific advancements are accessible to all.

Featured image: Epigram/Milan Perera

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Unveiling the dark past: eugenics and its role in legitimising racism - Epigram

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has no shortage of memorable and imposing villains. The Black Panther films, for instance, have delivered two complex antagonists who make audiences and the heroes ask serious questions about oppression and power. Meanwhile, more straightforward villains like Thanos have grounded reasons for their villainy, although their solutions to problems are cataclysmic, with The Mad Titan wiping away half of all living beings in the universe for several years.

The Guardians of the Galaxy have also had their fair share of villains with grand plans of annihilation and conquest, with their latest foe being one of the MCU's most horrifying to date. The High Evolutionary is the main antagonist in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and he is the man behind Rocket being more than just a typical raccoon from Earth. Why he created Rocket is part of the High Evolutionary's grander plans, which are rooted in a dark practice that makes him one of the MCU's most horrifying villains to date.

RELATED: Every MCU Easter Egg in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Rocket and his three friends are all the products of animal experimentation at the hands of the High Evolutionary, who is aspiring to create the perfect race of beings by forcing test subjects through a form of hyper-evolution. The High Evolutionary is doing this because he sees himself as a God who can deem what is and is not acceptable in his perfect universe. To achieve this, he is trying to create living beings without any intellectual or physical flaws. When a "flaw" is present, the High Evolutionary disposes of his test subject as soon as possible, only keeping the experiments that can further his quest for perfection.

This practice is eerily similar to eugenics, the advocacy of selective breeding done in the name of "improving" a population. Eugenics has a long, dark history connected to racism and antisemitism, as those who have infamously practiced it believe certain people are worthy of existing while others are not because of their genetics. There are some differences between the textbook definition of eugenics and what the High Evolutionary practices, but the similarities are shocking and make the High Evolutionary feel like a surprisingly realistic threat despite the unrealistic setting of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

Along with that, how the High Evolutionary practiced his experiments highlights what a monster he is. While he preaches that he is a savior who will create a paradise, the High Evolutionary does not care for any of his subjects. If any of them exhibit any sort of imperfection, he does not hesitate to dispose of them. Even for his underlings who believe they are working toward the same cause, the High Evolutionary has no qualms about eliminating them if they so much as pose a minor threat. His blatant disregard for life, his lack of loyalty and the joy he feels in regard to the pain he inflicts on others makes him one of the most sadistic and dangerous villains the MCU has to offer, and that's not all.

RELATED: GOTG 3 Star Bradley Cooper Would Happily Follow James Gunn to DC

Conducting these horrific experiments on living beings is already bad, but what takes Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3's High Evolutionary to another level is who his subjects are. The High Evolutionary experiments on innocent children of all species -- animal and alien in this case. He's taken the most innocent, helpless and naive of all beings and twisted them into his own image of messed-up perfection, with many of them suffering for years and eventually perishing at his hands, as is the case for Rocket's friends.

As Nebula points out, what the High Evolutionary does to Rocket as a child is far worse than anything Thanos did to her. Along with that, all of his friends have mechanical enhancements and prosthetics as a result of the unethical experiments the High Evolutionary conducts on them. He also lies to them about having a future away from this nightmare, even though he knows that he will not let any of them survive once they've served their purpose.

RELATED: James Gunn and Marvel Have Discussed the GOTG's Future

It is unclear how the High Evolutionary obtains these animals and kids in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but it's safe to assume he is ripping them away from their homeworlds and families. Even for those who escape his grasp, like Rocket, it's next to impossible for them to ever return to their families or a state of normalcy as they've been altered so much physically, emotionally and mentally that they may not recall where home is, and they may no longer grasp who or what they are.

The High Evolutionary strips these kids of their agency, autonomy, history, childhood and identity, and many of them he doesn't keep around to experience the "paradise" he is creating. He targets the most innocent of beings, all in the name of a horrific practice that is a vanity project meant to feed his god complex, and there's a daunting body count as a result. For these reasons, he's one of the most horrifying villains of the MCU.

To see how vile the High Evolutionary is, check out Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, now in theaters.

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Guardians of the Galaxy 3 Has the MCU's Scariest Villain - CBR - Comic Book Resources

Progressive watchdog Media Matters is out with a new report on disinformation spewing from a right-wing media outlet targeting Hispanic Americans.

In recent years, the rise of foreign-language media outlets peddling false and misleading information to Americans has concerned federal officials, including Democrats who have watched Republicans make inroads with Hispanic voters with the help of conservative disinformation networks.

Media Matters latest report sheds light on some of the abortion-related stories coming from one of those networks, Americano Media. The networks CEO and founder has said he wants it to become Fox News in Spanish, which tells you about the reach and political influence Americano is striving for. And with deep-pocketed investors, the network may have the means to do it unless more U.S. institutions commit to the fight against misinformation.

Many Americans probably have no idea that this fount of conspiratorial drivel even exists. According to Media Matters:

A common narrative that hosts on Americano push is the idea that Democrats and elites support a Satanic agenda. Narratives invoking Satanism as a talking point are especially common on Americanos radio shows when hosts discuss abortion, liken the procedure to a Satanic ritual, and argue that anyone who supports reproductive rights is aligned with Satanism. This narrative is also common among English-language right-wing media outlets and figures.

The report cites Americano hosts who have likened abortion to a satanic ritual, claimed Democrats support murdering children in the womb and falsely categorized abortion as a form of eugenics.

As Media Matters reported previously, this rhetoric aligns with other right-wing conspiracy theories frequently espoused by Americano Media hosts, including the racist replacement theory alleging that Democrats have a sinister motive for supporting the arrival of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

I consider Americano Media as part of the conservative movements multipronged effort to resolve their electoral problems with nonwhite voters. Where voter suppression efforts dont do the trick, the thinking seems to go, maybe voter misinformation will work instead whether that means using ostensibly Black-owned, English-language media channels to push conspiratorial claims, or using foreign-language platforms like Americano Media to do the same.

Ja'han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer.

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Fox News in Spanish bombards viewers with right-wing propaganda - MSNBC

More than to any of the other women I discovered in my family archive, I am drawn to my great-aunt Iris. Like her, I am the mother of daughters. Like her, I like to read and write. Like her, I grow food (a comparatively tiny amount). Her ideal church, she tells her father Omer Kem, would be a community gathering place where everybody is welcome and a free exchange of ideas is allowed.

This would be my ideal church too. And Iris was close to her father, as I am close to mine. It was only when I began to read Iris letters in earnest that I found myself yearning for these relatives I had never met.

Hers is the voice that most clearly articulates the passions of motherhood and daughterhood, that most poignantly expresses what kinship means, what belonging is. But then, in the 1920s and 30s, as her writing and thinking matures, Iris is the one family member, besides my great-grandfather Omer himself, who directly reveals the kinds of distortions kinship with and belonging to a white property-owning family in America can foster.

Though in Omer and Iris Americathe America of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesthe distribution of birth control materials and information was criminalized, this hadnt always been the case. Some women, white married middle- and upper-class women, had always had access to these materials.

But in the mid-nineteenth century, as poor rural people, immigrants, Black people, and many unmarried women flocked to cities, such materials were marketed to them also: Everywhere one lookedcontraceptive information, ads, and other materials were visible. The industrialization and mass migrations of the postbellum years brought many more married and unmarried women into contact with the commercialization of contraception and the freedom from patriarchal control that it allows.

The inevitable backlash against all these frankly displayed signs of sex was codified in 1873, when purity crusader and guilty masturbator Anthony Comstock, though not a legislator, wrote a national anti-obscenity bill to criminalize the circulation and sale of such obscene information and materials (drugs, gels, diaphragms, condoms).

In 1873 teenaged Omer was digging ditches in the Indiana mud, though his first wife, Nan, was already pregnant with their first baby, a boy named Edwin, who died before turning one. Over the next seven years, Nan would endure four more pregnancies, just about as many as one can have in that amount of time. She was either nursing or pregnant or both right up until her death at twenty-nine. It seems that in those years, obscene materials, legal or not, had not been available to a poor rural woman like her.

The year of Comstocks crackdown, 1873, was a pivotal year for other reasons as well. Just eight years after the war, and following a panic on the banks, the country faced its first Great Depression. The panic of 1873, wrote Du Bois, altered the face of society by leading to a four-year depression, followed by a consolidation of wealth in the hands of the few and a shift in the labor movement away from interracial class solidarity toward craft-based unionism.

In the northern cities, the streets were flush with the jobless poor, while in the Midwest, miners and factory workers faced wage reduction or sat idle. In the South, meanwhile, Reconstruction was attacked by Redemption, with its swelling waves of anti-Black terror. In Colfax, Louisiana, for example, where Black men had briefly made up the majority of the electorate and state assembly, a group of white paramilitary terrorists attacked the Black state militia with guns and cannons, killing (or later executing) up to 150 Black men.

What Comstocks crackdown on obscenity might have had to do with this inflection point in racial capitalism is something Ive not seen explored, and I cant explore it here either. But without a doubt, Reconstruction, immigration, and urbanization inspired great fears in white people in the South and North, fears having to do with racial contamination and the status of white workers. And racial anxieties, as can be observed in present-day America, seem always to inspire concurrent anxieties about the sexual lives of women.

The dawn of the new century brought a crackdown on free speech from another direction as well. After Leon Czolgosz assassinated President McKinley in 1901, anarchists, socialists, and especially members of the radical wing of the labor movement, the IWW, found themselves frequently thrown in jail for speaking their views in public.

In response, these same groups waged an intensive defense of the First Amendment in the streetsstaging protests, filling jail cells, publishing diatribes. The early birth control movement, led by Margaret Sanger, but which included free-speech, free-love anarchists like Emma Goldman, aligned itself with this truly valiant struggle for freedom, a struggle that led to the arrest and torture of hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

In the early twentieth century, the worker-led free-speech movement and the woman-led birth control movement emerged almost as one, responding to and resisting the same oppressive and reactionary forces waging war against their voices, their bodies, and their hopes for more just futures.

And yet, as is now commonly known and often decried, in around 1920, Sanger shifted the movement away from its radical roots. Under her leadership, the movement began to align itself instead with the growing eugenics movement and its anti-immigrant, racist, ablest, and classist ideology.

That year Sanger organized the first American Birth Control Conference in New York to purposely follow directly after the Second International Conference of Eugenics, hosted by eugenicists Fairfield Osborn and Madison Grant, author of the stupendously fascistic The Passing of the Great Race. Alongside her own first voicings of eugenic ideas, Sanger also made space in the Birth Control Review for leading voices in the eugenics movement, some of whom, like Paul Popenoe, Havelock Ellis, and Guy Irving Burch, advanced venomously racist and nativist beliefs and policies.

If I had hoped that the birth control movements anarchic origins had been as attractive to my ancestors as they were to me, I would be disappointed. By the time father and daughter were avidly discussing the project of birth control in the 1920s, it was fully grafted to the eugenics movement. Indeed, had it still been associated with anarchism or socialism, they would never have embraced it.

*

Iriss advocacy for birth control can best be found in two speeches she gave to the Olathe Womens Club in 1924 and 1925, just around the time that Sanger was establishing the countrys first long-term birth control clinic, Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, in New York City. In the first of these speeches, Birth Control as I See It, Iriss opening sentence is telling: My purpose in coming before you today to discuss this question is not because I believe you, as individuals, are in particular need of birth control. Rather, she goes on to explain, birth control is a matter for other womenpoor women, immigrant women, urban womena way of doing away with misery and crime through controlling the birthrate of the poor.

Iris gathers professional support by naming a series of male doctors, including some from her town, Montrose, Colorado, who support legalizing contraception, reliable persons all. Iriss final point pertains directly to the West, the frontier that once functioned as a safety valve for what many called surplus populations: There are no more vast unoccupied territories to send our young men to, she observes.

While once we might have been able to send them off to colonies, like Britain had done, these colonies are also rapidly filling up, as was the rest of the non-Western world: China is terribly overcrowded, so is Japan, India is even more so. Whats more, Iris goes on, in these countries, people are not dying of famine and disease like they used to. These countries are now learning how to take care of their babies and cure their sick. India is saving thousands who died before. Faced with all this excessive unwanted life, there is only one answer: birth control.

A year later, in another speech to the same body of women, Iris goes beyond this neo-Malthusian argument. Pioneer Life in Olathe as Seen by the Coreys is a mostly nostalgic talk in which she traces the early experiences of settler families in Colorados Uncompahgre valley. When she was a child, she tells her listeners, she and her siblings would play Indian: Our play was always most realistic because we found so many evidences of former Indian occupation (here she complicates her earlier depiction of vast unoccupied territories).

As an adult, Iris did some researchmostly talking to old-timersto better understand the pattern of dispossession she and her family took part in: The whites in Colorado became incensed at the Ute Indians, and being covetous of the fertile lands they occupied, brought about their removal.

As the speech continues, Iris emphasizes her gender-based empathy with Ute women: This must have been a sad Journey, as sad as the departure of the Arcadians. This had been their home and they were certainly exiles. Chipeta, Chief Ourays wife, must have been near heartbroken at leaving her home.

And yet despite this sad journey, this heartbreak, Ute removal makes a space that is quickly filled: The morning after the departure of the Utes, came the rush of settlers to occupy the land, she acknowledges. These first settlers include Iriss in-laws, the Coreys, and then, sixteen years later, her family, the Kems. After admitting to this opportunistic land theft, Iris shifts gears to describe some of the difficult challenges the early settlers faced.

For twenty-two paragraphs, she details their clothing, their food production, and their struggles to develop transportation and education. And then, at the very end of her speech, Iris takes a rather abrupt turn, as if shes just then remembered that she is speaking to women, that she has a message particular to them:

Those women suffered hardships and achieved many things, but we women of today have hard things to do and much to conquer if we would leave the world a better place than when we came into it. We have the vote, which our pioneer mothers didnt have, and with it we can do much if we will. Assisting at the birth of new babies can safely be left to the doctors of today, but who dare say that it shouldnt be in the hands of women to say what kind of babies shall be born and when they shall be born. May women soon awake to their opportunities and use them for the betterment of the race.

In his mind-opening book The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America (2018), Greg Grandin argues that the frontier didnt close with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 or with white settlement in Oklahoma. Rather, the expansionist imperative kept America moving far beyond its physical borders into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Ballooning imperialist projects echo and reignite the logic of early Americas wars of western expansion. From the Spanish American War in 1898 to early twentieth-century occupations in Latin America and the Caribbean, from the First World War, the Korean War, and Vietnam to the so-called war on terrorall this functions much the way the western frontier did: uniting (certain) Americans under a shared aggressive ideology.

The spread of democracy justifies all these wars, just as the spread of civilization justified Indian genocide and the annexation of Mexico. But while aggression is spun as progress, Grandin argues, the promise of boundlessness keeps us forever distracted from the racism and inequality that has always given the lie to the mission.

Grandins argument is powerful, and everyone should read his book. But there is yet another frontier in America that he doesnt mention, one that can never close: the white womans reproductive body. Iriss narrative of the pioneer womans journey is one of progress, despite the sad story of Indian dispossession and genocide that made that progress possible.

Through white womens struggles, lands have been cultivated, children educated, and democracy expanded. And now, says Iris, there are other lands to conquer. No modest proposal, Iris tasks we women with the role of curating the human race itself.

White women, she suggests, are uniquely and newly positioned to be the arbitersthrough the voteof the awesome power of reproduction. For Iriss generation, women are no longer just breeders; they are now also deciders. And as white women decide what kind of babies shall be born and when they shall be born, we make the world, the whole wide world, better.

Toward the end of her earlier speech, Irish unleashes the truly supremacist nature of her passion. If we can make laws to exclude undesirable people from the shores of our country, she reasons, can we not make laws excluding the undesirable among the unborn? Who are these undesirables? They are the many children of impoverished mothers, the poor little disgusting mites who have just growed and whose influence is a menace to all other children.

It was just a joke, of course, an attempt to spice her warnings, as many in my family often do, with a laugh. And yet humor is often the repository for undercurrents of anxiety and violence, especially of the racist category. Iris joke is not funny, but it does beg a question, one we can direct both to 1924 and to 2022. As reproductive justice is so unevenly distributed across race, citizenship, and class, who, really, is being menaced, and by whom?

______________________________

Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American Westby Julie Carr is available via the University of Nebraska Press.

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The Reproductive Movement Must Reclaim Its Radical Roots and Be ... - Literary Hub

Three appeals court judges with a history of supporting restrictions on abortion will hear arguments May 17 on whether a widely used abortion drug should remain available

By

KEVIN McGILL Associated Press

May 16, 2023, 12:04 AM ET

5 min read

NEW ORLEANS -- Three conservative appeals court judges, each with a history of supporting restrictions on abortion, will hear arguments May 17 on whether a widely used abortion drug should remain available.

The case involves a regulatory issue whether the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone, and subsequent actions making it easier to obtain, must be rolled back. The appellate hearing follows an April ruling by a federal judge in Texas, who ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. His ruling was stayed pending appeal. The case was allotted to a panel made up of Jennifer Walker Elrod, James Ho and Cory Wilson.

The three judges of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wont rule immediately. Their decision, whatever it is, is also unlikely to have an immediate effect pending an expected appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here's a look at who the judges are and their track records.

JENNIFER WALKER ELROD

Nominated to the court in 2007 by Republican President George W. Bush, Elrod was among several 5th Circuit judges allowing Texas to temporarily ban abortions as the coronavirus pandemic took hold in early 2020.

Elrod also was co-author of the opinion when the full 5th Circuit upheld in 2021 a Texas law outlawing an abortion method commonly used to end second-trimester pregnancies.

That same year, she wrote for a panel that refused to order Louisiana to issue a long-stalled license for a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in New Orleans, saying there is no free-standing federal right to receive an abortion-clinic license."

In the Texas case involving pandemic restrictions, she was part of a panel allowing what amounted to a ban on abortions including medication abortions by classifying them as non-essential procedures legally postponed under an order by Gov. Greg Abbott. The 2020 order was in effect for about a month.

Elrod was in favor of decisions upholding Texas and Louisiana laws requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals a move abortion rights advocates said would force some clinics to close.

When the full court narrowly refused to let Louisiana officials cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood facilities in the state, Elrod wrote the dissent.

Elrod also boasts a high profile in 5th Circuit decisions on regulatory issues. One, if upheld by the Supreme Court, could limit the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission to impose hefty fees and fines. Another, eventually struck by the Supreme Court, held that the individual mandate in former President Barack Obama's signature health care law had been rendered unconstitutional by congressional action.

JAMES HO

A former Texas solicitor general, Ho is the first Asian-American to serve on the 5th Circuit and is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was nominated to the 5th Circuit in 2017 by Republican President Donald Trump. His opposition to abortion and abortion rights was clear early in his tenure, including referring to abortion as a moral tragedy in one 2018 opinion.

In 2019, he wrote a 15-page grudging concurrence in a ruling that said a Mississippi abortion ban had to be struck down under then-existing court precedent. Nothing in the text or original understanding of the Constitution establishes a right to an abortion, he wrote.

He went on to cite the racial history of abortion advocacy as a tool of the eugenics movement." He harshly criticized a lower court for declining to consider arguments that a fetus can feel pain, and for displaying an alarming disrespect for the millions of Americans who believe ... that abortion is the immoral, tragic, and violent taking of innocent human life.

That opinion was written in the case the Supreme Court ultimately used to overturn Roe v. Wade.

CORY WILSON

Nominated to the federal appeals court in 2020 by Trump, Wilson is a former Mississippi appeals court judge who had a strong anti-abortion record when he served in the Mississippi House from January 2016 to February 2019 as a Republican. Abortion rights supporters opposed his confirmation to the federal appeals court. They noted he had expressed support for complete and immediate reversal" of the Roe v. Wade decision in a questionnaire from Mississippi Right to Life's political action committee.

Wilson voted for anti-abortion measures in 2016, including one to stop Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood facilities in the state a measure rejected in court. In 2018 he voted for the Mississippi law that ultimately led to the demise of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The law prohibited most abortions after 15 weeks.

At the 5th Circuit, Wilson joined Elrod, Ho and a majority of the full court in 2021 in upholding a Texas law outlawing an abortion method commonly used to end second-trimester pregnancies. He had voted for a similar law in the Mississippi Legislature.

___

Associated Press reporter Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.

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3 judges who chipped away abortion rights to hear federal abortion pill appeal - ABC News