to terminate pregnancies on hold effective seven days from now. kristen is the name of the drug at first got fda approval more than two decades ago, and until recently the notion of a judge having grounds to reverse approval of it was seen by many legal experts is dubious at best. however, abortion opponents steered their case to a judge named matthew kiss merrick of the fifth circuit in texas, and he has ruled as they hoped just after that. we got word of a ruling in a different federal court in washington state, affecting only some states on the same drug, so there s a lot to get to cnn supreme court reporter ariana vogue joins us right now on both rulings. so first tell us about the texas ruling and what that means. it s been an unbelievable night, right? both of these rulings opposing and they both have to do with the fbi. today s approval of the medication, abortion drugs, and that approval came in 2000. in this first case, what the federal judge said is he blocked the government
do think that when we look at and there are serious questions that the fda and the administration is going to have to figure out and how exactly we mapped this out, but on the other hand, but we are also seeing is it is a power grab over our courts, in which the laws passed by congress and the rules and policies passed by the executive branch. now we re going to require unanimous consent from 650 district court judges, many of which are appointed. ah with even you know, the american bar association, saying that they re completely unfit for the role is one of the things that a lot of people didn t pay that much attention to during the trump ministrations because there were so many bizarre things going on every day, but mitch mcconnell was you know, getting judges appointed to the bench who were the most conservative judges possible. they weren t just conservative. they were completely unqualified. and you
recent dobbs decision, but just take a step back anderson the idea that an age agency and over the last not just 20 years over the last 12 years engaged in higher levels of research to focus on this and about 299 other drugs when you have a whole universe of drugs that are available to focus on the research to look at these particular drugs, including this one in particular and then to say that it s a judge who has the power to usurp the authority of that agency. for the justices who care a great deal, which the supreme court has many now about the idea of administrative law. this is antithetical and so looking ahead to what they might conclude on that basis. i think there is room to question the longevity of the texas decision , doctor grantee. i mean, do you have from a medical standpoint? just on the efficacy and the safety of this drug. do you have any concerns about this drug any qualms about this drugs? the judge had also raised questions about the fda saying, you know they hadn
drug. he said he was going to put this on hold for a week to allow it allow appeals to occur , but basically, he said that the government had not taken into account the risks of the drug. the biden ministrations, as you said, said that this lawsuit brought by opponents of abortion was unprecedented because that drug has been on the books for so long. but here s what the judge who s a trump nominee said. he said that the fda entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem by omitting any evaluation of the psychological effects of the drugs or in evaluation of the long term medical consequences of the drug. now it s worth noting here , anderson that most medical groups disagree with that, but that s what the judge did in that particular ruling tonight. and what about the washington state ruling? so that s totally different. so this ruling this case was brought by more than a dozen liberal states, and they took the position that the fda