Gillibrand warns against AOC’s calls to ignore Texas abortion pill ruling
Ryan King
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) raised concerns about potential 2024 primary foe Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) calls to ignore a Texas judge’s abortion pill ruling.
Without explicitly ruling out pleas to ignore the ruling, Gillibrand alluded to the potential ramifications of dismissing the ruling and laid out a “last-ditch” strategy to safeguard abortion rights.
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“It’s hard to ignore the rule of law, and we have a court system and an appeals system for a reason. So I think the Biden administration is correct in actually fighting this at the Supreme Court,” she told CNN’s State of the Union.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk from Texas moved to halt the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, part of a two-drug regimen to induce an abortion. The pill has been approved for roughly 23 years.
“It’s an outrage. And so we will fight in every respect we can. We will file lawsuits, we will continue to appeal this kind of decision. We will also continue to fight state by state to codify Roe in state law,” Gillibrand added. “And we have had many ballot initiatives, even in red places like Kansas and Montana, where we have been successful.”
Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) urged President Joe Biden to simply ignore the ruling.
“The interesting thing when it comes to a ruling is that it relies on enforcement,” Ocasio-Cortez previously told CNN. “And it is up to the Biden administration to enforce, to choose whether or not to enforce a ruling.”
A ruling out of Washington contradicted the Texas decision soon after, telling the FDA not to alter the drug’s availability.
Then on Friday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito stayed the Texas ruling, teeing up a high court review this week. Should the high court not rule in favor of abortion rights, Gillibrand believes progressives can go state by state.
“Whether we win or not in the Supreme Court doesn’t mean that’s our last effort. We will go state by state to guarantee reproductive freedom. But I think the national conversation we have to have is this right to privacy,” she said.
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Gillibrand is up for reelection in 2024. Ocasio-Cortez has been speculated as a potential primary challenger against her, though the progressive firebrand has not declared a bid.
Both chambers of Congress are set to reconvene this week following a two-week hiatus.