Ranking Member Raskin’s Statement on Federal Court Decision to Restrict Medication Abortion Access

Washington, D.C. (April 7, 2023)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, issued the following statement on the decision by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas to invalidate the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of abortion medication:

"After forum shopping for a suitably right-wing activist judge and finding their man in the Northern District of Texas, Republicans have now secured an extraordinary judicial order from Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in an attempt to further seal off American women's access to abortion. Republicans have thrown our health care system into chaos and will not stop until they strip American women in every state of the Union of their right to access a safe and effective medication abortion. Mifepristone is the key prescription medication that millions of women have relied on for decades for a safe non-surgical abortion. This remarkable decision reflects neither the logic of law nor the facts of science but rather the political demands of an extremist MAGA movement seeking a total nationwide abortion ban. A ruling by a different federal judge in Washington state today, which may temporarily preserve access to mifepristone in certain states, makes clear just how extreme Judge Kacsmaryk's ruling is. Democrats will stand up again with the vast majority of Americans to defend reproductive freedom and the right of every American woman to make her own health decisions free from government repression and theocratic control."

During the 117th Congress, the Oversight Committee held three hearings examining the harm of state abortion bans and restrictions and the threat of a Republican national abortion ban.