Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) joined CNN on Monday morning to react to a Texas district court's decision on Friday to suspend the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval for abortion drug mifepristone — and she said she agrees with her colleague across the aisle, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), that the FDA should simply ignore the court's ruling.
As Mace argued, the ruling to strip FDA approval for mifepristone is based on a law from the 1800s that was overturned by the Supreme Court roughly 100 years after it was first passed. As such, Mace said that whole ruling needs to be "thrown out."
While the South Carolina Republican admitted that the final outcome for the FDA's approval of mifepristone will "be relegated to the courts," Mace went a step beyond criticizing the Texas judge's decision to say the FDA should just ignore Friday's decision. That's a course of action that was, notably, first suggested by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.
Not for nothing, it's also a questionable decision to start advocating for federal agencies to ignore court rulings, which seems like a bit of a slippery slope that erodes the separation of powers and a practice that would only further empower the administrative state which is already mostly unaccountable to the American people.
"This is an FDA-approved drug whether you agree with its usage or not," Mace said. "That's not your decision, that is the FDA's decision on the efficacy, safety, and usage of that particular drug."
Mace continued, saying she supports "the usage of FDA-approved drugs even if we might disagree" and reiterated her belief that it's not up to legislators or the court system to decide "whether or not this is the right drug to use or not."
Republican @NancyMace says she believes the FDA should ignore the Texas judge’s ruling. “This is an FDA approved drug. Whether you agree with its usage or not, that's not your decision. That is the FDA’s decision.” pic.twitter.com/wGJBunurcL
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) April 10, 2023
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"This is an issue that Republicans have been largely on the wrong side of," Mace said of policies regarding the protection of the unborn. "We have, over the last nine months, not shown compassion towards women and this is one of those issues that I've tried to lead on as someone who's pro-life and just have some common sense."
Ah yes, compassion for women. But only women that have already been born?
Continuing, Mace cited her "very purple district that's really a bellwether for the rest of the country" whose residents are "not going to agree" with the court's decision as a reinforcement of her position.
So, if a majority of Americans support the ability of women to get often-dangerous abortion pills that end the lives of innocent children, Mace is fine with it? Apparently so. We'd hate to extrapolate that "majority rules" standard to other issues, and Mace presumably would too.
After calling on the FDA to ignore a federal district court's ruling, Mace attacked the judge for doing "a rogue thing" before again going after her fellow Republicans for "getting it wrong on this issue" and demanding "we've got to show compassion to women."
Here's the thing: a person can disagree with a court's legal reasoning and call for vigorous appeal to higher courts — you know, the judicial branch system that has been established specifically to address issues and cases like this. But is it necessary for a self-proclaimed "pro-life" Republican lawmaker to join with a radical socialist Democrat colleague to call for a Democrat executive branch agency to ignore the ruling of a duly-serving member of the federal judiciary and continue allowing an abortion pill to be given to women? Come on.
As Townhall reported on Friday, District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk noted that the "Court does not second-guess FDA's decision-making lightly. But here, FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its statutory duty — based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions" in his ruling that will take effect on Friday unless the Biden administration appeals.
Judge Kacsmaryk also noted that there "is also evidence indicating FDA faced significant political pressure to forego its proposed safety precautions to better advance the political objective of increased 'access; to chemical abortion — which was the 'whole idea of mifepristone.'"
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