As expected, another Republican Christofascist Federal judge appointed by the Malignant Loser has decided his medical knowledge, uh, trumps that of the Food and Drug Administration, scientific evidence, and 20 years of proven safe and effective medication abortion:
The Department of Justice filed an immediate appeal following a Texas federal judge’s shocking decision Friday to pull the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortion.
The Justice Department appealed directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Friday night, only a few hours after the initial ruling.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the DOJ “strongly disagrees with the decision” 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,” Garland wrote. “The Department will continue to defend the FDA’s decision.”
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that the FDA’s approval of mifepristone was unlawful when the drug first went to market in 2000. Kacsmaryk stated in his decision that the FDA “manipulated and misconstrued” certain parts of the drug approval process in order “to greenlight elective chemical abortions on a wide scale.”
The decision does not take effect for seven days, allowing the DOJ’s appeal to play out. [snip]
A federal judge in Washington state issued a competing ruling also on Friday, which blocks the FDA from pulling mifepristone approval in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The dueling decisions will likely force the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in quickly, legal scholars speculated...
The cherry picked right- wing judge in a cherry picked right- wing District was responding to a lawsuit from an extremist anti- abortion, forced- birth group calling itself "Alliance Defending Freedom." (That would be "freedom for me, but not for thee.") They knew what they were getting in Kacsmaryk -- a member of the far- right Federalist Society and of the "red mass" committee of the Roman Catholic diocese of Ft. Worth. No god- bothering judicial activist bias there!
Vice President Harris issued a definitive statement responding to this outrageous assault on a woman's right to make her own health care decisions without the intrusion of womb- bothering, forced- birth Christofascists:
Today’s unprecedented decision threatens the rights of women nationwide to make decisions about their health care and the ability to access medication prescribed to them by their doctors. Simply put: this decision undermines the FDA’s ability to approve safe and effective medications—from chemotherapy drugs, to asthma medicine, to blood pressure pills, to insulin—based on science, not politics. This decision threatens the rights of Americans across the country, who can look in their medicine cabinets and find medication prescribed by a doctor because the FDA engaged in a process to determine the efficacy and safety of that medication.
At the same time as the court in Texas issued the decision to try to restrict access to FDA-approved medication, a court in Washington state reached a different conclusion.
Each person in our nation should have the right to access safe and effective medication which has been approved by the FDA. In the face of attacks on a woman’s right to access an abortion, our Administration will continue to fight to protect reproductive freedom and the ability of all Americans to make health care decisions with their doctors free from political interference.
As already noted, this is going to the Supreme Court, where 6 ethical, Catholic, Republican "justices" -- 5 male -- will render their solemn, non- political decision.
Then, we count the days until November 5, 2024, when Christofascist Republicans will reap the whirlwind.
(Photo: Trump Republican judge Kacsmaryk's happy face/ Senate Judiciary Committee)
