by Congressional Democrats were quick to condemn the decision Friday by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was appointed under former President Donald Trump, to suspend Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the pill. key abortion drug mifepristone, while top Republicans in Congress have yet to weigh in.
Kacsmaryk has given the government a week to appeal his decision, and President Joe Biden has said his administration will file an appeal. If the ruling finally takes effect, it would restrict access to the standard regimen for medical abortion throughout the country.
The top Democrat in the House, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said “MAGA’s extreme Republican assault on abortion care is spreading across America like a malignant tumor.”
“A dishonest judge just suspended FDA approval of mifepristone,” Jeffries tweeted. “We must all speak up, demonstrate and stand up until the far-right uprising is peacefully and democratically crushed.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., called the ruling “another massive step toward the Republicans’ goal of banning abortion nationwide,” adding that it “could lead our country to chaos”.
“This ruling by an activist judge is totally out of step with the law and sets a dangerous new precedent,” Schumer wrote in a statement shared on Twitter. “Senate Democrats are working tirelessly to protect women’s right to choose from this extreme Republican MAGA agenda.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA., also took aim at Judge Kacsmaryk and the Republican Party. “Republicans will never rest in their cruel and tyrannical pursuit of disrespecting a woman’s right to choose,” she said. tweeted.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, John Thune of South Dakota, have remained silent on the ruling.
The FDA approved mifepristone more than 20 years ago for use in combination with a second drug, misoprostol, to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks. More than half of abortions in the US are performed with medication, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
The pills have become increasingly important in the fight for abortion access since Roe v. Wade was voided last June.
While there is little legal precedent for a court to revoke FDA approval of a drug, some abortion rights advocates were not surprised by this decision by Kacsmaryk, who earlier in his career represented a conservative Christian legal group, First Liberty Institute.
The group had sued the federal government challenging the part of the Affordable Care Act that required employers to provide free birth control insurance coverage.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, also criticized Kacsmaryk. “A Trump-appointed judge in Texas believes he knows more than decades of scientific evidence and has ruled to block access to medical abortion across the country,” she said. tweeted. “Because of today’s lawless ruling, women could lose access to a safe and legal medicine they have trusted for decades.”
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., echoed Warren’s sentiments in a statement: “This ruling by a Trump-appointed far-right judge is simply nonsense.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., shared on Twitter images of what pregnancies are like at 6, 7, 8 and 9 weeks.
“Are those photos of human beings? I don’t know. But I do know this: That decision should be made by the woman, not Republican politicians or religious fanatic judges,” she wrote.
Representative Adam Schiff, D-Calif., called the decision “Another blow to the right to reproductive freedom of a Republican-appointed judge.”
Biden warned that the Texas ruling poses a risk to abortion rights across the country, not just for women in Texas.
“If upheld, it would prevent women in every state from accessing medication, regardless of whether abortion is legal in a state,” the president said. said in a statement. “It’s the next big step toward the national abortion ban that Republican elected officials have promised to make into law in the United States.”
