AOC: Texas abortion pill ruling 'an unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the courts'

08 April 2023

United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) appeared on Friday night's edition of Anderson Cooper 360 and railed against United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk's Friday ruling that invalidated the Food and Drug Administration's decades-old approval of the abortion medication known as mifepristone.

"The Court does not second-guess FDA's decision-making lightly,” Kacsmaryk wrote in the 67-page opinion. "But here, FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its statutory duty — based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions."

Although mifepristone is proven to be safer than "most other" common drugs including penicillin, Viagra, and Tylenol, Kacsmaryk claimed that the FDA approved mifepristone because of "significant political pressure."

Kacsmaryk gave President Joe Biden's administration a week to appeal before his ruling takes effect, and Biden wasted no time before assailing Kacsmaryk in a statement.

"The Court in this case has substituted its judgment for FDA, the expert agency that approves drugs," Biden said. "If this ruling were to stand, then there will be virtually no prescription, approved by the FDA, that would be safe from these kinds of political, ideological attacks."

Shortly after Kacsmaryk handed down his decision, Judge Thomas Rice for the Eastern District of Washington "essentially ordered the opposite and directed US authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats sued in an effort to protect availability," as reported by the Associated Press.

Back in February, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) told Rolling Stone that Kacsmaryk was "making a mockery of the rule of law, stomping all over the privacy rights of millions of American women," to which Ocasio-Cortez alluded in her conversation with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

"There has been thought, I believe, given to this. Senator Ron Wyden has already issued statements, for example, advising what we should do in a situation like this, which I concur, which is that I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling. I think that we sh, you know, the courts have the legitimacy and they rely on the legitimacy of their rulings. And what they are currently doing is engaged in an unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the courts. They – it, it is the justices themselves through the deeply partisan and unfounded nature of these rulings that are undermining their own enforcements," Ocasio-Cortez said.

"So what you're saying – the Biden administration should ignore this court – but what does that look like? What does that actually mean?" Cooper wondered.

"You know," the congresswoman opined. "I think the interesting thing when it comes to a ruling is that It relies on enforcement and it is up to the Biden administration to enforce, to choose whether or not to enforce such a ruling."

Watch below or at this link.

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