Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer has called on Republicans to throw out a ruling by a “right-wing MAGA judge” in Texas that suspends the FDA’s approval of abortion pills or be “complicit” in attacks on women’s health.
“They are afraid to speak. It’s outrageous,” the Senate Majority Leader told HuffPost during a press conference Saturday. “They let the extreme MAGA wing of their party run the whole show. They have an obligation to speak up or they are complicit in taking away the reproductive rights of tens of millions of Americans.”
In an unprecedented ruling Friday, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk argued that the FDA “manipulated and misinterpreted” parts of the drug approval process in 2000 to “accommodate widespread elective chemical abortions.” The Justice Department immediately filed a direct appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a court dominated by conservatives.
Democrats said the decision, if passed, would endanger the lives of millions of women and further threaten the FDA’s approval process for other drugs that conservatives might find objectionable.
“This is the next big step toward the nationwide abortion ban that elected Republicans have promised to make law in America,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Friday, adding that the only way to deal with such moves it’s “let’s deal with it”. . . elect a Congress to pass legislation to restore Roe v. Wade.
Schumer said the Texas judge, a favorite of conservative legal groups, “completely destroyed the FDA as we know it.” Then he asked, “What might happen next if a fringe radical group files a lawsuit, cancer drugs, insulin?”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who joined Schumer on the call, said Texas’ decision “wasn’t a fluke.”
“The Republicans engineered every confirmation, every attempt, to get us to this point,” he said. “Republicans want to ban abortion everywhere from Seattle to New York.”
Medical abortion is used for nearly 60% of all abortion and miscarriage care in the United States. More than 100 studies have shown that abortion pills are safe.
At the same time, a federal judge in Washington state issued a simultaneous ruling Friday that prevented the FDA from removing mifepristone from the market in 17 states and the District of Columbia where abortion is currently legal. Conflicting rulings by two federal judges will likely lead to a decision by the US Supreme Court.
So far, few Republican lawmakers have grappled with the decision. However, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) said it was “gratefulto the Texas judge for suspending a 23-year-old FDA approval that he said “recklessly broke the law.” The Mississippi Republican was one of 13 GOP senators to sign an amicus brief supporting the Texas case that blocked medical abortion approval.
There is ample evidence that the GOP continued to enact restrictions on abortion even after the repeal of Roe v. Wade at the cost of the vote. In 2022, Republicans won a much smaller than expected majority in the House and failed to win a majority in the Senate after Democratic voters angry over abortion rights flooded the polls.
And just this week in Wisconsin, voters delivered a massive rebuke to Republicans over abortion restrictions in a heated state Supreme Court race that tipped the balance in favor of liberals for the first time in nearly 20 years.
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