Sen. Ron Wyden urges Biden to 'defy the court’s order' if abortion pill is banned

17 February 2023

Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden advised President Joe Biden to "defy the court's order" if Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk orders a nationwide ban on the most commonly used abortion bill, mifepristone, in the coming days, Rolling Stone reports.

Per Slate Magazine, Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, "could get away with outlawing mifepristone, 'the first drug taken in the two-drug medication abortion protocol approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration),'" if the Supreme Court allows. Slate also notes the judge is known to be "the most lawless jurist in the country."

Regarding the potential ruling, Wyden told Rolling Stone, "You’ve got this one judge making a mockery of the rule of law, stomping all over the privacy rights of millions of American women."

Rolling Stone reports:

'The statute of limitations for challenging the approval of mifepristone has long since expired and, in the meantime, not only has Congress itself affirmed the FDA’s approval of the drug, the FDA has amassed 23 years worth of evidence proving the medication’s safety and efficacy beyond the shadow of a doubt. For those reasons and others, the case should never have made it this far. But none of it may matter: Kacsmaryk has the power, if he chooses, to issue a de facto ban on the abortion pill across all 50 states.'

Wyden writes in his prepared speech to present before Biden, "The power of the judiciary begins and ends with its legitimacy in the eyes of the public. A judge’s rulings stand because elected leaders and citizens have agreed that abiding by them is right and necessary to uphold the rule of law. That’s part of the social contract in America. But the judiciary must uphold its end of the social contract too. It must follow the rule of law and earn the confidence of the American people continually, every day, every month, every year.”

In the meantime, state battles over the right to abortion continue to fester.

WATCH: GOP senator vows to 'make abortion unthinkable'

The Cut reports:

'A dozen or so states that already heavily restrict abortion but do not fully prohibit it — such as Florida, Iowa, and Nebraska — could go as far as banning abortion at around six weeks, before most people even know they’re pregnant, without exceptions.'

Last year, the New York Times reported on the efforts advocates across the country are taking to keep abortion legal.

In August, a Kentucky judge approved two state clinics to perform abortions, and blocked a proposed ban on abortion "after six weeks of pregnancy." Although, this week, according to NPR, the state's Supreme Court decided to keep "near-total bans on abortion" as is "while a lawsuit over the matter continues."

Wyden says, "This is all about hot-wiring the system in order to produce an anti-abortion ruling — which is what his whole career has been about." Referring to Kacsmaryk, he continued, "If he wanted to be a legislator, he should have run for office."

Rolling Stone reports Wyden, who "chaired the very first Congressional hearing on the abortion pill" over 30 years ago, likened Kacsmaryk’s anticipated decision "to the Dred Scott decision, the infamous Supreme Court case that declared black Americans were not entitled to protections under the Constitution."

The senator emphasizes his most pressing concern is about "the privacy rights of more than 60 million American women.”

He says, “This is a battle where too much is at stake.”

Rolling Stone's full report is available at this link. Slate's is here. The Cut's is here. New York Time's is here. NPR's is here.

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