President Biden’s health chief stated that “everything is on the table” in the fight against the Texas abortion pill ruling, which blocked both prescribing and distributing mifepristone, one of the two abortion medications available.
Mifepristone has been used for over 20 years and previously had the approval of the Food and Drug Administration. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) is one of the many Democrats who have argued that there is a precedent that could be followed which would allow the Biden administration to ignore the ruling if they fail to block this case in court.
CNN’s Dana Bash asked Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on “State of the Union” whether they were considering having the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ignore the block placed by the court.
In response, Becerra claimed that “Everything is on the table,” which is something that the President had also said when the Dobbs decision was originally made.
On Friday, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the abortion pill needed to be blocked, they also provided the government with a weeklong window in which they could both appeal the case and seek emergency relief. The FDA appealed the decision within the day to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a completely separate case on Friday, a different federal judge in Washington state blocked the FDA from “altering the status quo and rights as it relates to the availability of Mifepristone” following a lawsuit filed by 17 states and Washington, D.C., where they claimed that the drug was too heavily regulated.
