Last Friday, the Supreme Court paused an extremist ruling from a district court judge in Texas, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, that could have eliminated access to medication abortion nationwide. But make no mistake — this is a temporary reprieve. Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling is still headed to an appeals court, and possibly the Supreme Court itself. This case makes it clear: Republicans are working toward a backdoor nationwide abortion ban, one that can be forced on Americans in red and blue states alike.
For us, access to abortion care is a deeply personal matter. One of us, Congresswoman Bush, has shared her experience of having an abortion, and the other, Senator Smith, served as an executive at Planned Parenthood in Minnesota. We know firsthand that for those facing this decision, it’s not about politics — it’s about our health and our lives. Everyone should be free to make their own decisions about their health care and their lives, including abortion, without government interference. Period.
Though outrageous, Judge Kacsmaryk’s initial overreach wasn’t surprising. It’s part of a decades-long GOP strategy to enact an anti-abortion agenda through the courts, while avoiding democratic accountability for their deeply unpopular policies. Republicans have stacked the courts with judges guaranteed to side with far-right interests, while protecting themselves from accountability at the polls through gerrymandering and voter suppression.
Republicans are so bent on executing their most extreme ideologies that they are willing to claim powers that aren’t theirs to claim. Despite more than 20 years of overwhelming evidence that mifepristone is safe and effective at terminating pregnancies, Judge Kacsmaryk repeated talking points from anti-abortion extremists in taking the unprecedented step of overruling the nonpartisan scientists at the Food and Drug Administration. Congress has granted FDA with authority over the drug approval process, and the agency can and…
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