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Press Release
Reproductive Freedom for All Responds to Senate Confirming Anti-Abortion Extremists to Federal Bench
For Immediate Release: Friday, October 31, 2025
Contact: [email protected]
Reproductive Freedom for All Responds to Senate Confirming Anti-Abortion Extremists to Federal Bench
Washington, DC — The Senate has confirmed four of Donald Trump’s judicial nominees during the middle of a government shutdown, quietly continuing their decades-long effort of packing the courts with anti-abortion extremists. Each of these nominees has a lengthy record of attacking abortion, voting rights, LGBTQIA+ equality, and more—and now the Senate has given them lifetime seats on the federal bench. They include:
- Edmund LaCour Jr. to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama
- Chad Meredith to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky
- William Mercer to the United States District Court for the District of Montana
- Jordan Pratt to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju released the following statement:
“Republicans in Congress caused this shutdown, and now, instead of working to reopen the government, they are quietly confirming Trump’s anti-abortion extremists to lifetime seats on the federal bench. Americans are watching their health care costs skyrocket while Republicans double down on an agenda to ban abortion nationwide and roll back our freedoms.”
Trump is filling judicial vacancies with anti-abortion, anti-democracy extremists who will remain loyal to him while advancing his agenda to ban abortion nationwide. The four judges confirmed this month have directly led efforts to roll back abortion access and advance an extreme agenda:
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- As Solicitor General of Alabama, LaCour defended Alabama’s total abortion ban, defended Alabama’s attempt to ban abortion care during the COVID-19 pandemic, and led an amicus brief on behalf of 20 anti-abortion states in a case challenging a South Carolina law that banned abortion before most people know they are pregnant.
- Meredith defended Kentucky’s ban on mifepristone, a common, safe, and medically-proven effective medication used in the most common method of abortion care. He also defended two challenges to Kentucky’s targeted restrictions of abortion providers (TRAP) laws, and led numerous amicus briefs on behalf of Kentucky in support of bans and restrictions on abortion care.
- During his time in the Montana House of Representatives, Mercer voted for numerous bans on abortion care, some of which included provisions to criminalize providers and impose medically unnecessary regulations on abortion providers and care. He also voted for numerous bills to put a ballot measure to voters that would insert so-called “personhood” language into the Montana constitution.
- As a district judge on Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal, Pratt wrote the opinion blocking a young person’s access to abortion through judicial bypass, and joined other anti-abortion judges in handing down a ruling that stripped away some access for young people who try to seek abortion care without parental consent. He also previously worked as senior counsel for the anti-abortion hate group First Liberty Institute, where he wrote and filed an amicus brief in support of Florida’s abortion ban.
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For over 55 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.