Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Sunday said “everything is on the table” following a Texas federal judge’s ruling to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication abortion drug mifepristone.
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” the secretary would not say whether he believes the FDA should ignore the ruling and keep the drug on the market, but he maintained that the Biden administration is considering all options.
“We want the courts to overturn this reckless decision,” Becerra said, adding that there was a “good chance” of Supreme Court intervention but declining to say how, exactly, the administration will handle the ruling in the interim.
“Everything is on the table. The president said that way back when the Dobbs decision came out. Every option is on the table,” the secretary told Bash, referring to last year’s Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.
US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on Friday issued a ruling to halt the decades-old approval of mifepristone, but he paused the ruling from taking effect for a week so it could be appealed, a process that is underway.
“This is not America,” Becerra said Sunday. “What you saw is that one judge in that one court in that one state, that’s not America. America goes by the evidence. America does what’s fair. America does what is transparent, and we can show that what we do is for the right reasons. That’s not America.”
Within an hour of the ruling Friday, a different federal judge ruled in favor of 17 Democratic-led states and Washington, DC, looking to expand access to the abortion pill, allowing them to keep the drug available.
Becerra on Sunday touted the proven safety of the drug, a factor that Kacsmaryk questioned in his ruling. He confirmed that the…
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