constitutional right t abortion was eliminated in thi country nearly a year ago. a federal judge in texas las night issued a sweeping ruling to reverse the food and s 23 year old approval of a key abortion drug, the rulin orders the fda to hold thi medication from pharmacy shelves in every state regardless of whether or not abortion is legal in tha state. u.s. district judge matthew ha put a seven-day hold on hi willing to give the government the opportunity to repeal it the justice department did fil a notice of appeal last night. let me tell you what is at stake here the drug in question is one of a standard two drug regiment commonly prescribed by doctors for medication abortion across the country. medication abortions account for more than half of al abortions in the united states according to the good doctor institute. and this was approved by the fda in 2000 is one the mos heavily studied and scrutinize drugs on the market. studies show that it is safe than penicillin,
is an off ramp for anythin about abortion and the situationally avoid lettin women know that they have th option to have an abortion they basically shone peopl into adoption and or other options to guarantee that they give birth judge has merrick has been a long time volunteer in tha movement i think the supreme court has series of off-ramps here, no just because of his language but to michelle s point, the decision is wholly outcome determinant on a number of legal issues like standing whether the plaintiff exhaustive, their rabbit ears. this is a 23 year old approval by the fda one might question why didn they sooner. there s a number of places where the supreme court coul take a convenient off ramp without even having to go into the really complex and partisa issues of abortion if they r willing to take it the other thing i would say is this decision is antithetica to dobbs itself. there is a number of pro-choic attorney generals who filed
outcome determinative if the right case comes before th court. in hobby lobby, the suprem court notably it was a cas that was authored by justice alito, the supreme court was willing to defer to a group of businesses that said that they believed that contraceptives - factually inaccurate, no supported by any medicine or science whatsoever, the suprem court was willing to lean into that the supreme court was also willing to lean in by saying well, we carved out this decision to only apply t matters involvin contraception. what a businessman, claimed yo have this belief, which had no happened before and they use that religious belief to den their employees certain type of health care this will apply to contraceptives we have seen that before, we even saw that in the dobbs case, mississippi is an absolutely deadly place for anybody to be pregnant if you re a black woman there,
transformative this ruling i and the need to pause it t grant that stay, i expect we will be in front the supreme court sooner than we know it ali. let s assume that to be the case michelle, let s take the supreme court, there are a lot of people in this audience and in this country who would say, this is doomed, if it goes t the supreme court we know ho that s going to go except there are specifics about this case that are a little bit perverse. the judge s comments in a lo of cases that far exceed wha the faintest were even saying. the issues of standing, th comments he makes about wome and their inability to represent themselves in a case if you had an abortion, yo have to musculature partly think straight the fact that there is a competing decision by anothe federal judge. it - is a less obvious that it migh be the supreme court, they may have an issue with this really but one would hope so excep that what we understand from the dobbs decision, from the lobby decision is that t
brief or they said, if dobbs i serious about what it is said, that the decision abou abortion should be returned to the states, that people an their elected representative then, this decision is wholl at odds with dobbs dobbs and this decision cannot coexist. i think that offers the suprem court and off ramp as well i they are willing and brave enough to take it. the governor of washingto state is very worried abou this, there s a stockpile of three years for women who live in states like california or new york or the places where abortion remains illegal they don t think there was any threat for them. more than half of women us this to drug combination t have an abortion should people be buying this let me say this in the washington litigation we see that the court has said that the fda should do nothing to decrease access t