[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 63 (Monday, April 17, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1123-S1124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Mifepristone

  Mr. President, this week, the fate of women's healthcare rests with 
the Supreme Court of the United States. In the coming days, the 
Justices are expected to decide whether one activist judge in Texas can 
singlehandedly disregard decades of medical and professional consensus, 
whether he can create chaos for doctors and women seeking abortion and 
cut off access to reproductive healthcare nationwide.
  Remember when Justice Alito announced that the Dobbs decision would 
just give each State the authority to regulate abortion? It sounded so 
simple: 50 different standards for abortion, but then each State can 
make the decision.
  Well, it has been less than a year since the Court's rightwing 
majority issued that decision overruling Roe v. Wade. Here we are, 
faced with the very real possibility that mifepristone--a pill, a drug, 
a medicine the Food and Drug Administration approved more than 20 years 
ago--could be banned or severely restricted all across the Nation--so 
much for each State's experiment on the issue. This decision would 
affect the medication nationwide, even in States where abortion has 
been judged legal.
  So how did we reach this point? It starts with one Federal judge in 
Texas, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, and his original attempt to upend our 
Nation's drug approval process and ban mifepristone. You see, this drug 
has been on the market for over 20 years, approved by the Food and Drug 
Administration.
  This story really reveals the fallacy at the heart of the Dobbs 
decision. Justice Alito and the rightwing majority claimed that they 
were just going to settle the controversy over abortion by returning 
the issue to each State, but, in truth, they just replaced controversy 
with chaos. The Dobbs ruling didn't resolve anything. It merely paved 
the way for activist judges like Judge Kacsmaryk to impose their 
radical agenda on everyone else, even in States which had voted to 
protect the right to abortion.
  Earlier this month, that is what happened. Judge Kacsmaryk, in 
Amarillo, TX, defied decades of scientific evidence to revoke the FDA's 
approval of the medical abortion drug mifepristone. The medication is 
used in more than half the abortions in America. It is safe, it is 
extremely effective, and studies show that it is safer than Tylenol and 
presents fewer risks than routine medical procedures like colonoscopy. 
In the past 20 years, millions of American women have used this drug to 
terminate an early pregnancy or to help manage a miscarriage with 
minimal complications. So this attempt to ban this medication isn't 
grounded in science, and it certainly isn't grounded in any concern 
about the safety of women.
  You see, Judge Kacsmaryk is a longstanding, outspoken critic of 
abortion. Just this weekend, the Washington Post revealed that this 
very same judge in Amarillo, TX, failed to disclose to the Senate 
Judiciary Committee an article that he had cowritten criticizing 
abortion rights when he was nominated to the Federal bench.
  So why exactly did this judge, a known anti-choice radical, end up 
deciding this case with implications in the entire United States of 
America? Well, it wasn't a coincidence, believe me. On the contrary, it 
was a classic case of judge shopping. That is when plaintiffs game the 
legal system to bring their case before a favorable judge.
  In this case, the plaintiffs, a group of rightwing MAGA activists, 
filed a lawsuit challenging the FDA's approval of mifepristone in the 
Amarillo division of the Northern District of Texas. Under the district 
court's rules, all cases filed in the Amarillo division are assigned to 
one judge. You can guess his name: Judge Kacsmaryk. So these rightwing 
activists knew, if they filed an antiabortion lawsuit in Amarillo, 
their case would be decided by a friendly judge who shares their views 
and his ruling would have an impact not just on Amarillo and Texas but 
the entire United States of America.
  Well, the plaintiffs got exactly what they wanted. Judge Kacsmaryk 
delivered. The scheme worked. He delivered the biggest blow to 
reproductive rights since last year's Dobbs decision--so much for each 
State making a decision.
  His decision didn't return this issue to the States. It replaced the 
will of the people in the States with this judge's point of view. By 
attempting to ban mifepristone nationwide, the judge tried to impose 
new national restrictions on abortion that have no basis in science and 
are extremely dangerous.
  Now, there have been a number of developments in this case over the 
past

[[Page S1124]]

week, and, as a result, the Supreme Court will take up the issue of 
abortion again, twice in less than 1 year. This lawsuit against 
mifepristone is only the latest example of the never-ending chaos and 
confusion women and medical professionals have experienced since the 
Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade.
  All across America, activist judges and rightwing lawmakers are 
working hand in hand to impose increasingly onerous restrictions on 
reproductive care, and they won't stop until abortion is banned in 
every form in every part of the country. It is not about each State 
deciding it at all.
  Of course, there is only one reason this relentless assault has 
accelerated: the Dobbs decision. By erasing a constitutional right that 
had been on the books for 50 years, the rightwing majority opened the 
floodgates for new laws and new rulings and even criminalizing 
abortion. And the laws seem to be changing almost every week. Doctors 
have no idea if the care they provide today will be legal tomorrow.
  Recently, Florida decided that they would not allow pregnancies to be 
terminated after 6 weeks of pregnancy. It is just a fact of life--and 
every person knows it--that it usually takes much more than 6 weeks for 
a woman to be certain that she is pregnant.
  So instead of ending the ban on abortion, the Dobbs decision has 
really opened a different debate: How far will we let this brand of 
political radicalism go?
  Look at how these attacks on reproductive healthcare have escalated. 
First, the Supreme Court overturned decades of legal precedent to 
revoke a constitutional right. That is the first time it has ever 
happened in the history of the Supreme Court, revoking an established 
constitutional right.
  Now, less than a year later, one judge in Texas has decided to 
escalate the situation. He wants to take drug approval decisions out of 
the hands of doctors and scientific experts at the FDA and violate 
decades of congressional and Agency precedent.
  So, naturally, the American people are wondering: What is next? How 
far will the rightwing extremists go in destabilizing our rights and 
the rule of law? What is next? Birth control? Vaccines? Medicine for 
HIV/AIDS?
  It is a genuine question. Just ask healthcare providers in Illinois 
who are wondering if they are going to face criminal charges for 
providing vital and potentially lifesaving care.
  Let me tell you about one of them. Her name is Andrea Gallegos. She 
operates a clinic in Carbondale. She opened her clinic last October 
after the Dobbs decision. She wanted to provide resources to women 
traveling from other States. Today, roughly 95 percent of her patients 
travel from outside of Illinois.
  She tells us that the recent rulings on mifepristone have created 
chaos. Every day, she receives calls from terrified patients who are 
wondering if they will even be able to receive care. The question she 
hears the most is: ``Will someone come after me'' when I ask for 
assistance? And while Andrea tries her best to reassure her patients, 
the truth is, she is even struggling to understand the state of the law 
in America. She says the chaos and confusion are ``putting pregnant 
[women] even more at risk.''
  Andrea and her patients are living with the real-world consequences 
of anti-choice radicalism, and it shows how the Dobbs opinion is 
entirely detached from reality.
  Andrea said:

       The Dobbs decision did not resolve any controversy . . . it 
     has forced pregnant [women] to flee their home[s] . . . for 
     health care. . . . It has forced citizens of this country to 
     become medical refugees [in their own] states. . . . [And it 
     has] forced health care providers to put their patients in 
     dangerous, potentially life-threatening situations.

  She said:

       The Dobbs decision goes against what we . . . stand for in 
     America . . . a person's fundamental right to life, liberty 
     and the pursuit of happiness.

  These are the words of a healthcare professional trying to operate 
within the law and wondering, as it changes by the week, If Dobbs 
returned the question of abortion back to the States, what about my 
State? What about their elected leaders? Our voters spoke, and our 
leaders took action to reflect their will to strengthen access to 
abortion. So why does one judge in Amarillo, TX, have the last word 
when it comes to medical abortions in my State or any other State?
  This war on women's healthcare has gone too far. That is why the 
Senate needs to do its job: Stop the chaos and return and establish the 
``Roe v. Wade'' woman's right to choose once and for all by passing the 
Women's Health Protection Act.
  In the meantime, here is what Senate Democrats are doing. I joined 49 
of my Senate colleagues in filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court 
urging them to immediately overturn the Amarillo decision banning and 
restricting access to mifepristone.
  Additionally, in the coming weeks, the Senate Judiciary Committee, 
which I chair, will hold a hearing on the state of abortion rights. 
This will be a followup to the hearing we held last year immediately 
after the Dobbs decision.
  We have learned what happens when you revoke a constitutional right 
from the American people. We can never let this happen again. We need 
to respect the rights of women to make this choice, to make their own 
healthcare decisions, and to do it in consultation with medical 
professionals--doctors and medical professionals who are not living in 
fear that they are going to be imprisoned by making the right medical 
decision. And Democrats won't rest until we have restored access to 
these constitutional rights nationwide.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from Texas.