1995—In A Woman’s Choice v. Newman, federal district judge David F. Hamilton issues a preliminary injunction preventing Indiana from implementing its recently enacted statute governing informed consent for abortion. Hamilton’s extraordinary obstruction of that statute—which was materially identical to the provisions held to be constitutionally permissible in the Supreme Court’s 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey—continues for seven years, until the Seventh Circuit reverses his rulings.
In March 2009, President Obama makes the former ACLU activist his first nominee to a federal appellate seat. In its headline on the nomination news, the New York Times touts Hamilton as a “moderate.”