Biden administration says disregarding abortion pill ruling would set "dangerous precedent"

[Polybius]

Source: CBS News

Washington — The Biden administration on Sunday appeared to dismiss suggestions from some congressional Democrats that it ignore a ruling from a federal judge in Texas that took aim at the abortion pill, with a spokeswoman saying doing so would set a "dangerous precedent."

In a series of tweets in response to a decision from U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk halting the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of the drug mifepristone, Kamara Jones, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, reiterated that the agency is prepared to continue defending that 22-year-old approval through the legal process.

"People are rightly frustrated about this decision — but as dangerous a precedent it sets for a court to disregard FDA's expert judgment regarding a drug's safety and efficacy, it would also set a dangerous precedent for the administration to disregard a binding decision," Jones said. "We are confident that the law is on our side."

Jones noted that the Justice Department will seek a stay of the decision pending appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which would allow mifepristone to stay on the market while legal proceedings continue.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abortion-pill-ruling-texas-fda-mifepristone-biden-administration/

[OnDoutside]

1. I agree.

[LiberalFighter]

2. The judge needs to be slammed and shut down.

And that requires overturning his ruling.

[marybourg]

3. Yes. The ruling is clearly wrong and defies precedent, but it would

be dangerous to ignore it.

[republianmushroom]

4. I like it

Appeal his decision, Yes.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

5. I agree, but make no mistake...

Pukes will ignore any ruling down the line that they don’t like.

[WestMichRad]

16. They are no doubt interested in the effort in Israel...

… to allow the Knesset to override any decision by the high court there, with a simple majority. Probably are already scheming how to do that here, especially for if and when they get majorities in Congress and regain the White House.

[Polybius]

18. Then why haven't they ever done it before?

The only President that ever openly ignored a federal judge was Andrew Jackson.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

24. Because, in my opinion...

This is a new breed of radical right-wing extremist we’ve been dealing with since 2016. But we’ll see. Hopefully these losers will flush themselves before they get the chance.

[RAB910]

6. The problem was our system was created to stop an evil person here or there

It wasn't designed to handle an entire political party turning evil

[WheelWalker]

7. The fascists are offering anarchy... where the rule of law is wholly abandoned.

We must not accept the invitation by following suit and leaving the path of remedies under law.

[Igel]

40. This is less "following suit" and more "leading with an ace". n/t

[C_U_L8R]

8. Letting women die is a worse precedent.

As is letting magat judges play doctor.

[groundloop]

9. For the moment that ruling does nothing ......

There was a second ruling by a federal judge which requires this medicine to stay on the market, and of course the Biden Administration will be appealing the magat judge's ruling.

However, what's going to happen when this case gets to the Supreme Court?

[thesquanderer]

36. re:"that ruling does nothing--a second ruling--requires this medicine to stay on the market"

I believe the second ruling requiring it to stay on the market is only applicable in some states.

[f_townsend]

10. More dangerous than women dying for no good reason?

Texas woman almost dies because she couldn’t get an abortion

[speak easy]

14. Yes nt

[RobinA]

34. Yes

And I say that as a woman. That is the underpinning of our whole system. It must be dealt with within the structure set up for that purpose. You start ignoring judges you don't agree with and our democracy cannot work.

[Sanity Claws]

11. What about the dangerous precedent set by the judge?

[peppertree]

13. But they are gods, don'tchaknow

Despots in robes, as Thomas Jefferson aptly called them (at least in the potential sense).

[slightlv]

12. This is one I have to break with Biden on

It's much more dangerous a precedent for a federal judge in a single, chosen court... especially one who has shown he has an agenda... to do what Kacsmaryk has done.

IMO, it's simply another step in the new Confederation of states to ignore the United States and it's laws and do whatever it wants to everyone. They've been doing this for so long now, it seems like no one is seeing it's simply a ramping up of ignoring laws and precedents. What's next? How many of our rights and civil liberties are we going to allow these theological judges to strip from us? Are we simply going to allow ourselves to become a sister state with Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan? The only difference is in the name of the process. We don't do "Sharia" law. We do White Christianist Nationalist law. I, for one, am not willing to live under that. I don't understand why Biden won't take a stronger stand. I'm sorry, but as flawed as he was, I wish for an LBJ these days. Playing nice isn't going to cut it when the enemy has the knife to your throat. And just because it's us women who have the knives to our throats doesn't make it any less dangerous for everyone.

I do have a question, tho... if the ruling in Washington (?) was only for those states which brought the suit, then why wasn't Kaz's ruling only for those states whose attorneys general brought the suit? How can one court (not being the Supreme Court) rule for the entire United States? That really seems "off" to me -- like unethical, if not flat out illegal.

No, President Biden... this HAS to either be fought to a righteous conclusion or ignored. For pete's sake, we had 4 years where every law and statute was ignored that the right wing didn't like. It's time to enjoin the fight... not hold your head down and hope the institutions hold. WE are the institutions, but people like me don't have the power. That's why we elected you.

I really like Biden as a man, and as a president. In ordinary times, he'd be fantastic. And he's done well so far, but it seems like things are going off track. This "decision," and a few other environmental issues I've taken exception with. I'm not damning the man, he is MY president. But I do wish he (and the entire Democratic Congress) would present stronger against the right. Otherwise, I'm afraid we're just going to get run over.

And gods, before I read much more.... Caffeine!!!!! I'm barely ready to read "the news." (sigh)

[Iwasthere]

17. I totally agree with you

Nice guys finish last, and Biden is being a nice guy all too often lately imo. They will trample on us every chance they get, laughing all the way. They're willing to go Lower, evil, we are not. Their level of evil is difficult to fight. We need an uprising on the streets I think. VOTE!!

[slightlv]

25. Yes, we vote...

and we get out the vote. We work hard to elect Democrats... even those some of us are very disappointed in once they take office. But they're taking the vote away from us. Where I live, unless we go to the "one person, one vote" true democratic form of elections, my vote is never going to count for anything. I'm gerrymandered upon gerrymandered upon gerrymandered. For gods' sake... KS is even legislating a flat tax! How much more stupid and inane can anything be? We fought like hell to keep these idiots from office. Where I live, my vote is cancelled out by the number of R's in my district. And so it goes all across the States in the entire U.S.

Vote? Yes, absolutely. I always have and always will. I just wish it'd count for something, for once.

[NullTuples]

30. GOP judges setting national injunctions while Dem/neutral ones limit themselves is a weakness

It results in a ratcheting to the right, one ruling at a time, with no mechanism to undo it until the next higher court can rule. And to make it worse the GOP judges rulings intentionally cause very real harm to people in the interim.

[Fiendish Thingy]

15. No, ignoring the ruling sets the proper precedent

Judges shouldn’t be allowed to practice medicine.

If someone is harmed by a drug, let them bring a civil suit, and persuade a jury of their harm. If enough people are harmed, let them bring a class action suit, and let the FDA review their approval of the drug.

[WestMichRad]

19. This!!!

[Polybius]

22. The argument is that Republican Presidents didn't ignore Roe (and later on Casey)

Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr., and W Bush absolutely hated those rulings, and didn't ignore them. They worked to change the rulings by appointing conservative federal judges and Justices.

[luxmatic]

20. Mostly agree, but....

…game it out. If disregarding a decision that will literally kill women and take authority away from the FDA doesn’t warrant it, what does? If the SC doesn’t reverse, what then? If the SC sits on this for a year, what shall we do in that time?

[NullTuples]

29. It almost feels like the Bannon faction did what they could to foment civil war quickly and now...

...it's McConnell's turn to put his long-game into play. Either way, Leonard Leo & the Federalist Society get what they want.

Because NOT fighting for equality and liberty is as harmful to America as the damage done by ignore the ruling or other dark consequences of pushing back against Republican fascism.

[Warpy]

21. Oh, what damage rogue judges bucking for sainthood could do!

Let's see, vaccines developed using 50+ year old embryonic tissue for testing would be gone, let's bring back all the preventable diseases! Maybe this judge will have the keen pleasure of seeing his grandchildren all go to heaven. Then another can ban icky blood transfusions, another can ban painkillers, completely. A Jewish judge could go all fundy on the Christians and ban the raising, slaughter, and sale of pork and pork products--no more bacon!

This is why we have the anti establishment clause, so these fucking lunatics will keep their religion where it belongs, in their churches, temples and mosques and at home, not in the courtroom and not in the government. It's the only way a multi ethnic, multi religious civil society can manage to hang together.

After all, even Jesus was in favor of that one, giving to Caesar that which is Caesar's and to god that which is god's.

[NullTuples]

27. Only problem is the establishment clause boundaries are determined by...SCOTUS

Which has been packed with conservative Christian religious zealots.

[roamer65]

23. Ok, the legal states will ignore it.

Easy peasy…done.

[NullTuples]

26. The punchline is that Republicans ignore precedent anyway when it benefits them to do so.

[Polybius]

28. The Supreme Court ignoring precedent is legal, however

A President ignoring federal rulings is entirely different.

[NullTuples]

31. It may be legal, but they're dismantling generations of settled law on a whim.

Another case of our bedrock documents choosing to not impose hard limits on the legislative & judicial branches. Heck, it turns out they barely constrained the executive once "traditions" and "rules" are ignored. Simply put, our Constitution is fatally flawed in that they apparently never conceived of an attack from within. Because why would any of them do THAT? (this is where diversity would've likely been a big plus)

[NullTuples]

32. Biden doesn't even have to ignore it; he could just slow walk FDA implementation...for a decade

[Igel]

41. Yes, it is.

Obergefell ignored precedent, did it not?

Having states ignore Obergefell would be entirely different.

Even Roe overturned established precedent.

I'd like to think of Jackson and the Trail of Tears as sort of a hapax legomenon sort of thing. Not the exception that becomes the rule.

[Magoo48]

33. So, some of you are saying that even though life will be more difficult and dangerous

for thousands of women, precedent is more important than their safety?

[RobinA]

35. Yes

You ignore a ruling on this and next you've got a President Trump ignoring everything he doesn't like. He was shut down by judges many times, to the country's advantage. Very, very dangerous.

[samir.g]

37. "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!"

Jackson did it.

[Igel]

42. And you want to defend that?

What resulted?

Ethnic cleansing and the Trail of Tears.

Sorry, not an ignominious something I want to hold up as a model to be followed.

[Voltaire2]

38. When do we start fighting this war?

Normalcy ended in the judiciary when SCOTUS discarded precedents and removed reproductive autonomy rights from women. Normalcy ended with the Republican Party when they refused to convict Trump after his impeachment for his attempted coup on Jan6. The Republican Party is now an overtly authoritarian anti-democratic nationalist party, a fascist political party. Ain’t no normal there either.

The time to stop pretending our institutions of government are functioning normally, that corrective measures are not required, that time was years ago.

[SouthernDem4ever]

39. Typical. Dems follow the law while repugs would disregard it