Governor Jay Inslee joined his fellow Democratic governors from the east to talk about their ongoing fight against abortion restrictions.
In that meeting with Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Governor Inslee says the federal court ruling out of Texas that the Food and Drug Administration was in error when it approved the abortion medication, Mifepristone, is not only an attack on women’s freedom, but the suppression of science that threatens the pharmaceutical industry. “How is the pharmaceutical industry supposed to function,” Inslee asks, “if it has to answer to the Trump whims of every judge who wants to tear down the fabric of scientific knowledge in this country?”
Inslee says this is just one battle in what he says are more attacks coming from the right, starting with what he calls the “opening shot” from Idaho, “when they essentially said they’re going to try to control what happens to women in the state of Washington by criminalizing travel from Idaho of anyone.” Inslee says that includes Washingtonians going into Idaho and back to our state as well as women and girls from Idaho and, under that state’s new law, anyone who helps a minor go to another state without parental consent to seek abortion services that are legal in that state but not in Idaho. Minors do not need parental consent for abortion services in Washington.
Following the Texas ruling and the conflicting ruling from the U.S. District Court in eastern Washington, the Governor says our state will continue to distribute Mifepristone even if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Texas ruling. Inslee was also asked why there wasn’t an effort to stock up on the other abortion drug used in the two-drug combination, Misoprostol, and he says it’s because there was no court case threatening access to that drug. He says Washington would fight any lawsuit seeking to block use of that drug, and he says he and state Attorney General, Bob Ferguson, have talked about other possible litigation, including a suit against states like Idaho that try to make laws that interfere with legal access to abortion services in Washington State.
Leading Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have been largely silent on the Texas case, with former Vice-President, Mike Pence, calling it a victory for life and a fix for “a 20-year wrong.” A group of Congressional Republicans is calling on the federal appeals court to uphold the Texas ruling, calling the FDA’s Mifepristone approval “unlawful”.
