Tucked into a Texas judges decision to invalidate the federal approval of the medical abortion drug mifepristone is a much more sweeping goal: the implementation of a nationwide ban on all abortions.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas contains two arguments that could lead to a full nationwide abortion ban. First, Kacsmaryk opens up the possibility of providing all prenatal stages of development with personhood rights by insisting on describing zygotes and fetuses as an unborn human or unborn child. Second, and less directly, the judge invokes the 1873 Comstock Act in support of banning the distribution of any materials or products to promote abortion.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Courts insistence that it was returning the issue of abortion to the states in its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization , the anti-abortion movement has always sought a national ban on abortion. The anti-abortion movement was founded in the 1960s with the goal of enacting a nationwide ban on abortion. That started with a push for a constitutional amendment, but when that foundered, the movement shifted to judicial remedies, including overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion, and finding prenatal personhood rights through the 14th Amendment.

Judges looking to push the law in a particular direction often introduce new arguments in decisions that others can build on in the future. Kacsmaryk does exactly that in his decision in the mifepristone case. Kacsmaryk seeks out prenatal personhood with his unusual definition of all entities in prenatal stages of development as unborn humans. This should come as no surprise, as Kacsmaryk was an anti-abortion activist before President Donald Trump nominated him for the federal court in 2017. His decision is peppered with anti-abortion rhetoric, calling doctors abortionists, and it relies on anonymous posts on an anti-abortion movement website to frame abortion as a dangerous practice for women.