On Monday, Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina joined Democrats in their call for the Biden administration to ignore a ruling by a Texas judge on mifepristone, an abortion medication, and blasted the court decision as “unconstitutional.”
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled Friday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone unlawfully. The move essentially banned the sale of the drug.
However, the issue became a legal quagmire when the Texas ruling was followed only hours later by a conflicting court decision from Washington state ordering the FDA to continue making the drug available.
Mace, in a CNN appearance Monday, said she agrees with Dems who say the president should ignore the Texas decision. “It’s not up to us to decide as legislators … whether or not this is the right drug to use or not, No. 1, so I agree with ignoring it at this point.”
When asked why she believed the FDA should ignore the Texas ban, Mace said the decision was unlawful because the judge’s ruling was based on an invalid law.
“I disagree with the ruling,” said Mace. “The judge used a law from 1873, which the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional in 1983. And so the entire basis for the ruling, I would argue, was unconstitutional in that regard.”
Additionally, Mace, while maintaining she is pro-life, said her fellow Republicans are “on the wrong side of history” on abortion rights. She declined to say if she was concerned about ignoring the Texas judge’s ruling and if the move would set a dangerous precedent.
“Look at Camden County in Missouri; I mean, they’re ignoring the ATF, saying that they’re unconstitutional,” said Mace. “Both sides are fighting things that they believe are unconstitutional.”
“Both sides fight things that they believe are unconstitutional,” added Mace. “If it’s OK for one side, it should be OK for both sides. And I think that’s what we’re missing here in this argument.”
“The other thing that we’re missing, too, is that [Republicans] are not on the right side of history if we’re going to take the extreme position on this issue because the vast majority of Americans are not with us on that. They’re just not,” said the lawmaker.
Biden administration gears up for fight against Texas ruling
Monday, the Biden administration upped its fight against the Texas ruling and requested a stay on the order, a move backed by Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services Secretary, and the FDA.
Several Democrats spoke out in favor of the decision by the Biden administration. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York both called for the administration to ignore the Texas decision on the abortion bill, prompting criticism from GOP lawmakers over the Democrats’ disregard for the judicial system.
“The left is continuing its assault on the rule of law,” said Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri. “Whether it’s packing the Supreme Court, indicting the former president on flimsy charges or urging the administration to ignore a federal judge’s ruling, the left has made it clear they have contempt for the rule of law and care only about power.”
GOP Senator John Cornyn of Texas compared the Dems’ leading the demand to southern Democrats last century who resisted the civil rights movement.
“Like Southern Democrats against civil rights in the 1950s, progressive Democrats today are demanding that a federal agency ignore a legal ruling they don’t like,” said Cornyn on Twitter.
