Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer urged the Republicans to speak out from the decision of the “right-wing MAGA judge” in Texas suspending the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of abortion pills or otherwise “complicit” in the attack on women’s health.
“They’re afraid to speak. It’s terrifying,” the Senate majority leader told HuffPost during a press call on Saturday. “They’re letting the extreme MAGA wing of the party run the whole show. They have an obligation to speak up, or they’re complicit in taking away the reproductive rights of tens of millions of Americans.
In a decision not yet finalized Friday, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk said the FDA “deceived and misunderstood” certain parts of the drug approval process in 2000 in order to “provide elective chemical abortions on a large scale.” The Justice Department immediately filed a direct appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a conservative-dominated court.
Democrats say the ruling, if implemented, would endanger the lives of millions of women and further threaten the FDA’s approval process for other drugs that may be considered conservative.
“This is the next big step toward a national ban on abortion that Republican elected officials have vowed to legislate in America,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Friday, adding that the only way to deal with a move like this is to elect a Congress that would enact legislation restoring Roe v. Wade.
Schumer said the Texas judge, a favorite of conservative legal groups, “completely dismantled the FDA as we know it.” Then he asked: “What will happen next if some fringe radical groups bring lawsuits, Cancer drugs, insulin?”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who joined Schumer on the phone, said the Texas decision “didn’t happen by accident.”
“Republicans carefully planned every confirmation, every lawsuit, to get us to this,” he said. “Republicans want to ban abortion everywhere, from Seattle to New York.”
Medication abortion is used for nearly 60% of all abortion and miscarriage treatments in the U.S. More than 100 studies have shown the abortion pill is safe.
In the same hour on Friday, a federal judge in Washington state issued a competing ruling that blocked the FDA from removing mifepristone from the market in 17 states and the District of Columbia, where abortion is currently legal. The contradictory rulings of two federal judges are likely to lead to a decision by the US Supreme Court.
Few Republican lawmakers have embraced the decision so far. However, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) said she “thanks“for a Texas judge to suspend an FDA approval from 23 years ago that he said was a “reckless violation of the law.” The Mississippi Republican was one of 13 GOP senators who signed an amicus brief in support of the Texas case that halted the approval of the drug abortion.
There is ample evidence that the GOP continues to push for abortion bans, even after Roe v. Wade was revoked, having received a charge at the ballot box. In 2022, Republicans won a smaller-than-expected majority in the House and failed to hold a majority in the Senate after Democratic voters angry over abortion rights flooded the polls.
And just this week in Wisconsin, voters delivered a major rebuke to Republicans over the abortion ban in a hotly contested state supreme court race that tipped the balance in favor of liberals for the first time in nearly 20 years.