Texas’s heartbeat abortion law, with its rather bizarre enforcement mechanism, has been enjoined by a federal judge. Also, a federal judge has enjoined Texas’s abortion law. Ed Whelan noticed something odd about the first two paragraphs, which contained an odd feature that was brought to my attention by Ed Whelan. See if you can spot the problem. Read the very first two paragraphs:

If you’re stumped, click through to Whelan’s tweet about it.

Oops. That is not a good sign in a judicial opinion. Did this guy not read the opinion over before putting it out?

Whoops. This is a bad sign in an opinion written by a judge. Did the jurist not bother to read it before he published it?

The judge issued a new opinion correcting the defect I have been mocking in this post. But the first corrected version still had this error:

Uh, no, Judge Pitman, Chief Justice Roberts did not issue a *concurring opinion* when the Court denied the abortion providers' request for emergency relief. pic.twitter.com/H3F7CTi33U

— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) October 7, 2021

As for the content, my quick read is that the judge is saying “I’m not going to let a lot of legal technicalities stand in the way of doing what I will loudly proclaim, for the benefit of newspapers who might want to quote me, is the Right Thing.” But I confess it will take a lot more time for me to thoroughly digest it. Here’s hoping he makes most of his points only once.