Herc Driver

“There are few better examples of the right-wing corruption of the federal judiciary than what happened yesterday down in Amarillo, Texas, when federal trial court “stayed” FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. The ruling applies nationwide and on its face will ban the drug when it goes into effect in seven days. I put “stayed” in scare quotes because the ordinary meaning of a stay is to put an action on hold, to prevent it while its validity or legality is evaluated. It’s to prevent some irreversible harm. But mifepristone was approved for use in the U.S. 20 years ago. There’s no serious or substantial question whether mifepristone is safe and effective for the purpose of inducing an abortion. And that is what the FDA evaluates. It’s something federal judges don’t normally evaluate and really aren’t in any position to. This is simply yet another backdoor way to ban another legal method to abort a pregnancy in red states and blue.”