The ACLU is currently challenging a Kansas law—passed in May but not as yet enacted thanks to an injunction—that would require women to pre-pay for extra insurance if they want abortion coverage. The law would also prevent state health insurance from covering abortions.

And the man judging whether or not women should have greater access to abortion coverage should, by all reasonable laws of nature, be dead:

U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenneth Gale recommended that when 104-year-old U.S. District Judge Wesley Brown hears the case, he lift the injunction the ACLU obtained, thus permitting the new law to be enacted.

The ACLU has until September 26 to submit comments and objections to the recommendation.

Now, just because he's older than radio—hell, old enough to have waltzed with the dinosaurs and begot Methusela, according to at least half of Kansas—doesn't mean he's ill-equipped to sit on the bench. But am I the only one who thinks that having women's access to comprehensive health care decided by a 104-year-old man is a little depressing?