Case 2:22-cv-00223-Z Document 137 Filed 04/07/23 Page 64 of 67 PageID 4486
and third parties would be harmed by an injunction, the Court still balances these factors in favor of ensuring that women and girls are protected from unnecessary harm and that Defendants do not disregard federal law.
For these reasons, a preliminary injunction would serve the public interest. Defendants maintain that unaborted children of the women “who seek but are unable to obtain an abortion” are “expected to do worse in school,” “to have more behavioral and social issues, and ultimately to attain lower levels of completed education.” ECF No. 28-2 at 7. “They are also expected to have lower earnings as adults, poorer health, and an increased likelihood of criminal involvement.” Id. But “[u]sing abortion to promote eugenic goals is morally and prudentially debatable.” Planned Parenthood of Ind. & Ky., Inc. v. Comm’r of Ind. State Dep’t of Health, 917 F.3d 532, 536 (7th Cir. 2018) (Easterbrook, J., dissenting); see also Box v. Planned Parenthood of Ind. & Ky., Inc., 139 S. Ct. 1780, 1790 (2019) (Thomas, J., concurring) (“[A]bortion has proved to be a disturbingly effective tool for implementing the discriminatory preferences that undergird eugenics.”). Though eugenics were once fashionable in the Commanding Heights and High Court, they hold less purchase after the conflict, carnage, and casualties of the last century revealed the bloody consequences of Social Darwinism practiced by would-be Übermenschen. Cf. Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, 207 (1927) (“It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.”).
Defendants are correct that one purpose of injunctive relief is to preserve the status quo. See, e.g., City of Dallas v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 847 F.3d 279, 285 (5th Cir. 2017). But the “status quo” to be restored is “the last peaceable uncontested status existing between the parties before the
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