Reps. Biggs, Gosar and Lesko back cruel, regressive abortion pill ruling

If you’ve lived in Arizona for any amount of time, there are some things you just know.

For instance, if I were to tell you that a group of 69 Republican members of Congress filed a brief urging an appeals court to, in essence, set back women’s reproductive health to the year 1873, you would know – without seeing the list – that Arizona Republicans would be on it.

And, of course, they are.

Eleven GOP senators and 58 members of the House filed a brief supporting U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs taken in pill form in medication abortions.

It accounts for roughly 50% of abortions in the United States and has been used safely in the United States for more than 20 years.

Ruling could ban all abortion nationwide

Kacsmaryk based his decision on an 1873 anti-pornography law called the Comstock Act, claiming that abortion drugs are “nonmailable” and that the FDA didn’t follow proper procedure in granting approval all those years ago.

Among the Republicans looking to set back women’s reproductive freedom roughly a century and a half are Arizona Republican Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar and Debbie Lesko.

The authors of a Stanford Law Review article claim that if the judge’s ruling that the drug is “nonmailable” is allowed to stand, it could “effectively ban all abortion nationwide because almost every pill, instrument or other item used in an abortion clinic or by a virtual abortion provider moves through the mail or an express carrier at some point.”

To properly grasp this attack on women’s rights we have to look to a politician outside of Arizona. In this case, Washington’s Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.

No surprise Biggs, Gosar and Lesko support it

In a statement Murray pointed out how “far-right extremists” went shopping for a judge they figured would be willing to “pull a drug that is safer than Tylenol.”

She added, “Let’s be clear: mifepristone is safe and effective. The FDA determined that 20 years ago. The science is done. The results are in. This ruling isn’t about science – it’s about ideology. It is not about protecting women – it’s about controlling their bodies. It is cruel, and it flies completely in the face of all reason and logic.”

If you’ve lived in Arizona for a while, that part about being “cruel” and flying in the face “of all reason and logic” explains exactly why Bigg, Gosar and Lesko would support it.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Debbie Lesko back cruel abortion pill ruling