Senator Murray on Fifth Circuit Ruling: An Unprecedented Assault on Abortion Rights and FDA's Authority to Do its Job

Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), who has long helped lead the fight for abortion rights in the U.S. Senate, issued the following statement on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal's ruling issued last night regarding mifepristone.

"With the Fifth Circuit's decision, we still have judges overruling scientists and medical experts, and dictating to the women of this country when and how they can access medication abortion--it's infuriating. We're talking about judges imposing outdated restrictions that fly in the face of medical science and two decades of patient and doctor experience.

"It should be deeply disturbing to all Americans that any member of our judiciary would seek to overrule FDA's expertise in favor of an ideology that has nothing to do with facts or science and everything to do with controlling women's bodies--this is an unprecedented assault on abortion rights in every part of this country and FDA's authority to do its job.

"I am urging the administration to fight this ruling all the way to the Supreme Court, and all Americans should pay close attention and speak out against these blatant efforts to chip away at--and completely ban--your right to abortion in all 50 states."

Senator Murray forcefully denounced Judge Kacsmaryk's ruling to revoke the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) more than 20-year-old approval of mifepristone in a press call the very next morning with Leader Schumer, and helped lead her colleagues in filing an amicus brief to the fifth circuit on Tuesday urging a stay of Kacsmaryk's ruling. She will continue to use all tools at her disposal to stop any efforts to restrict access to mifepristone in the days to come.

Senator Murray has been warning about the tremendous harm this lawsuit could inflict on women and patients in all 50 states--and she has been leading the fight in Congress to protect Americans' reproductive rights and ability to get medication abortion, as well. She pushed to expand access to mifepristone as COVID-19 first spread across the U.S. and blocked Republicans' attempts to curb access to it in the middle of the pandemic. Senator Murray applauded FDA's removal of burdensome barriers to mifepristone and has long underscored that access to medications like mifepristone, which has a strong track record of safety and effectiveness, should be based on science, not politics. Last month, Senator Murray also led her colleagues in pushing top national pharmacy chains to provide the strongest possible access to mifepristone for patients.

Senator Murray has always fought to make reproductive health care more accessible and affordable for women everywhere--beating back countless Republican attempts to defund Planned Parenthood and other family planning services over the course of her career, and she is widely credited with successfully pushing the Bush administration to follow the science and make Plan B available over the counter.

Murray led her colleagues at the very outset of this Congress to make crystal clear that Senate Democrats are continuing to fight to protect every American's reproductive rights and will be a firewall against House Republicans' continued attacks on our rights--and that's exactly what she's doing now. Senator Murray recently helped lead 48 of her colleagues in reintroducing the Women's Health Protection Act to put an end to the chaos Republicans have caused and restore Roe nationwide.

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