Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on Monday joined Democrats in their call for the Biden administration to ignore a Texas judge’s ruling on the abortion medication known as mifepristone, blasting the court decision as “unconstitutional.”
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled late Friday that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone was unlawful, a decision that effectively banned the sale of the drug. But the issue became a legal quagmire when the Texas ruling was followed within hours by a conflicting court decision out of Washington state that ordered the FDA to maintain the drug’s availability.
On CNN Monday, Mace said she agrees with Democrats who say that Biden should ignore the Texas decision: “It’s not up to us to decide as legislators … whether or not this is the right drug to use or not, No. 1, so I agree with ignoring it at this point.”
Asked by Fox News Digital why she believes the FDA should brush off the Texas ban, Mace said the decision was unlawful because the judge based his decision on an invalid law.
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“I disagree with the ruling,” she said. “The judge used a law from 1873, which the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional in 1983. And so the entire basis for the ruling, I would argue, was unconstitutional in that regard.”
She took it a step further in a separate interview with Fox News Digital and accused her fellow Republicans of being “on the wrong side of history” on abortion rights, clarifying that she is pro-life.
Mace declined to say whether she was worried about whether ignoring the Texas judge would set a dangerous legal precedent. But she did say these sorts of decisions are being made, pointing to Missouri officials in a county who passed an ordinance to break its ties with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) after claiming the body was unconstitutional.
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“Look at Camden County in Missouri, I mean, they’re ignoring the ATF, saying that they’re unconstitutional,” Mace said. “Both sides are fighting things that they believe are unconstitutional.”
“Both sides fight things that they believe are unconstitutional,” she added. “If it’s OK for one side, it should be OK for both sides. And I think that’s what we’re missing here in this argument.”
“The other thing that we’re missing, too, is that [Republicans] are not on the right side of history, if we’re going to take the extreme position on this issue, because the vast majority of Americans are not with us on that. They’re just not,” the moderate GOP lawmaker said.
On Monday, the Biden administration stepped up its fight against the Texas ruling by filing a request for a stay on the order that’s backed by the FDA and Health & Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Several Democrats spoke in favor of that decision. For example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., both called on the Biden administration to ignore the abortion pill decision, which prompted criticism from Republican lawmakers over the left’s disregard for the judiciary.
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“The left is continuing its assault on the rule of law,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told Fox News Digital. “Whether it’s packing the Supreme Court, indicting the former president on flimsy charges or urging the administration to ignore a federal judge’s ruling, the left has made it clear they have contempt for the rule of law and care only about power.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, compared the Democrats leading the demand to the southern Democrats of the last century who were resisting the civil rights movement.
“Like Southern Democrats against civil rights in the 1950s, progressive Democrats today are demanding that a federal agency ignore a legal ruling they don’t like,” the Texas conservative wrote on Twitter.