‘What drug isn’t subject to challenge?’ US health secretary says abortion pill ban threatens other meds

US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has said that a Texas court ruling blocking the abortion drug mifepristone could threaten other medications.

In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Mr Becerra said that the decision challenges the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) entire drug approval process and risks access to medicines including vaccines, insulin, and potential Alzheimer's treatments.

“If a judge decides to substitute his preference, his personal opinion, for that of scientists and medical professionals, what drug isn’t subject to some kind of legal challenge?” said Mr Becerra on Sunday.

On Friday in Texas, US district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that mifepristone's approval by the FDA, which happened more than twenty years ago, was improper and should be suspended with seven days' notice.

Within hours another district judge, in Washington state, ruled the opposite. The White House has vowed to challenge Judge Kacsmaryk's decision meaning the case will almost certainly go to the US Court of Appeals and perhaps to the conservative-dominated Supreme Court.

Mr Becerra also said on Sunday: "So we have to go to court, and for America's sake and for women's sake we have to prevail... I gotta believe that an appeals court, the Supreme Court, whatever court, understands that this ruling by this one judge overturns not just access to mifepristone but possibly any number of drugs."

Asked by CNN host Dana Bash whether the White House would be willing to ignore the ruling if defeated in a higher court, Mr Becerra said: "Everything is on the table. The President said that way back when the [Roe v Wade] decision came out. Every option is on the table."

Abortion pills have become a new front in the battle over abortion rights since the overturning of Roe v Wade last June. Nearly half of US states have banned or tightened access to abortion pills, according to Axios.

Conservative activists sued the FDA in November claiming that mail-order mifepristone violates the Comstock Act, a 150-year-old statute named after the 19th-century Christian crusader Anthony Comstock, which banned the sending "obscene" materials such as contraception, sex education books, pornography, and abortion drugs via the US postal system.

Though modern courts have consistently applied the law more narrowly, Judge Kacsmaryk –who was appointed by former president Donald Trump and reportedly campaigned against gay marriage and transgender rights before joining the bench – held differently.