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Memos & Media Guidance
MEMO: Trump’s Judicial Noms: What To Know Ahead of Confirmation Hearings
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Reproductive Freedom for All
RE: Trump’s Judicial Noms: What To Know Ahead of Confirmation Hearings
DATE: June 3, 2025
Confirmation hearings will begin tomorrow for Trump’s first slate of judicial picks for his second term. So far, he has nominated Whitney Hermandorfer to the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, and four nominees to the U.S. District Court in Missouri, including Joshua Divine and Maria Lanahan.
Hermandorfer, Divine, and Lanahan all have extensive anti-abortion records:
- Hermandorfer served as lead counsel in a case defending Tennessee’s total abortion ban. Hermandorfer also challenged HHS’s rule requiring providers who receive federal Title X funding to give patients information about where to get an abortion if requested by the patient.
- Divine is currently representing Missouri in Missouri v. FDA, the latest legal challenge against access to mifepristone, a pill commonly used in abortion care and miscarriage management. Divine also led litigation challenging Missouri’s ballot initiative to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution.
- Lanahan supported Missouri’s effort to intervene in Missouri v. FDA (formerly AHM v. FDA) and spread outrageous disinformation about mifepristone despite decades of peer-reviewed research proving its safety, defended Missouri’s proposed legislation to prevent any Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood in the state, and is a member of the ultra-conservative Teneo Network, chaired by Leonard Leo.
With 46 vacancies to fill, these appointments are an alarming sign of what’s to come. The infographic below is a resource that outlines how Trump’s plan to pack the courts with MAGA loyalists will give anti-abortion extremists a path to successfully attack reproductive freedom through the judicial system.
Federal courts can make or break access to reproductive health care. As we’ve seen in cases like Missouri v. FDA, Trump-appointed judges and the legal groups that are loyal to him are taking their efforts to ban abortion to the courts—and with Trump-appointed judges at every level of the judiciary, they’re getting closer to their goal. The average age of this slate of judicial nominees is 39 years old, meaning that if they are confirmed, these extreme picks could shape the outcome of cases related to reproductive freedom for decades to come.
After filling his cabinet with extremists who have lengthy records of attacking reproductive freedom, this slate of nominations shows that Trump now has his sights set on packing the courts with extremists who will put his anti-abortion, anti-democracy agenda over justice, fairness, and freedom.
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For over 50 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.
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