On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Beat,” Planned Parenthood CEO and President Alexis McGill Johnson stated that while she strongly opposes the ruling by a federal judge in Texas on the abortion pill mifepristone, ignoring the ruling — an idea touted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) — would be a dangerous “sacrifice” of the institutions the country relies on “in the name of power.”
Host Melissa Murray asked, “[O]ne option is that the FDA could pursue its own enforcement discretion to decide whether or not to follow this judge’s ruling. Can you say more about whether or not FDA enforcement discretion is something that should be pursued at this point?”
Johnson answered, “I think there’s no question that this is a politically motivated attack on abortion access across the nation, and the case itself is completely unprecedented, but I do want to offer a little bit of caution here. We are literally in a situation, after we just watched the amazing video in Tennessee a couple of minutes ago, where the opposition is clear that they want to sacrifice democracy. They want to sacrifice the institutions, the very processes that we rely on to have safe voting, safe access to medication, safe access to keeping our communities safe, and they are willing to sacrifice those institutions in the name of power. And I think we go down a very slippery slope when we say that we are willing to do the same thing.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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