by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News April 9, 2023

The Biden administration should ignore a Texas federal judge’s ruling on Friday which halted FDA approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, New York socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said.

Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk directed the FDA to suspend the approval of mifepristone while a lawsuit challenging its safety and approval works its way through court. Kacsmaryk stayed the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug, but gave the federal government seven days to “seek emergency relief from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.”

“Deeply partisan” judges have “engaged in unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the courts,” AOC said, calling the abortion pill ruling “unfounded.”

“The interesting thing when it comes to a ruling is that it relies on enforcement,” AOC added. “And it is up to the Biden administration to enforce, to choose whether or not to enforce a ruling.”

Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden issued a similar statement: “There is no way this decision has a basis in law. It is instead rooted in conservatives’ dangerous and undemocratic takeover of our country’s institutions. No matter what happens in seven days, I believe the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to ignore this ruling.”

Wyden said Joe Biden should also ignore the judge’s ruling.

In January, the FDA allowed certified retail pharmacies to dispense the abortion pill mifepristone. Doctors and pharmacies currently prescribing and dispensing mifepristone must get a special certification to do so.

Mifeprex (mifepristone) is taken with misoprostol in a two-drug regimen that first blocks hormones needed to keep an unborn baby alive and then causes cramps and contractions to expel the dead fetus from the mother’s womb.

More than 5 million women in the United States have used Mifiprex to abort their pregnancies since it was approved in 2000, according to Danco Laboratories, the abortion pill manufacturer that sells Mifeprex. The company claims the drug is 97% effective in terminating early pregnancy, though approximately 3% of women who take it will “require surgical intervention for ongoing pregnancy, heavy bleeding, incomplete expulsion, or other reasons such as patient request.”

Attorney General Marrick Garland said that the Justice Department will be appealing Kacsmaryk’s ruling: “The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the decision of the District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA and will be appealing the court’s decision and seeking a stay pending appeal. Today’s decision overturns the FDA’s expert judgment, rendered over two decades ago, that mifepristone is safe and effective. The Department will continue to defend the FDA’s decision.”

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys argued that the FDA “chose politics over science” when it granted approval to abortion pills in 2000. The lawsuit contests the FDA’s decision to define pregnancy as an “illness” and its finding that mifepristone provides a “meaningful therapeutic benefit” to women seeking an abortion, which expedited the drug’s approval.

“The FDA never studied the safety of the drugs under the labeled conditions of use, ignored the potential impacts of the hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls, disregarded the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause more complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary safeguards for pregnant girls and women who undergo this dangerous drug regimen,” according to ADF.

Action . . . . Intelligence . . . . Publish

  AOC urges Team Biden to ignore judge’s ruling halting FDA approval of abortion pill, WorldTribune.com