Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche told the Senate that the Trump administration’s Department of Justice believes the Biden administration’s radically relaxed rules for obtaining abortion pills “were wrong.”
The declaration came during Wednesday’s confirmation hearing.
In his exchange with Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, Blanche explained that the DOJ is “not defending what Biden did, and will not,” when the previous administration stripped safety regulations from mifepristone following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
“We want to get to a good result consistent with President Trump’s administrative directive and priorities.”
Blanche repeatedly refused to discuss the DOJ’s “litigation strategy” in the ongoing landmark Louisiana v. FDA case because “it’s not appropriate.”
Instead, the nominee pledged the DOJ and the Trump administration to “protect the life of the unborn and work with states” to accomplish that goal in the best way possible.
The commitment to protecting life extends to defending the abortion pill safety guidelines — which included an in-person doctor visit — set by the first Trump administration.
“I anticipate we, the department, would defend those rules,” Blanche told Hawley.
Even though no review is required for the FDA to reinstate some of the common-sense abortion pill safeguards, Blanche was careful to note that the DOJ believes the burden of correcting the mifepristone guidelines rests on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s abortion pill review.
The FDA previously signaled it does not plan to reinstate the first Trump administration’s mifepristone Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy until its review is complete.
“Remember, we have to have studies that we can defend in court. We have to be able to say to a judge, probably in this district, that our change was not arbitrary and capricious.”
“So we’re trying to let FDA — we, meaning the Department of Justice — do their work so that we can have, continue to protect the lives of the unborn children, and frankly, the state’s laws, like Missouri’s, which is really what’s being violated here at its core,” Blanche said.
The exchange concluded after Blanche responded positively to Hawley’s pitch for a “Protecting Women and Children Initiative, that would work then with states to go after these coerced abortions.”
One Louisiana v. FDA plaintiff, Rosalie Markezich, suffered a coerced abortion.
“I very much commit to looking at that. I share your concerns. The story you mentioned, I’m aware of that story. It’s horrible,” Blanche said.
Blanche also answered in the affirmative to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who asked whether the DOJ “will carefully evaluate every lawful action available to ensure the faithful enforcement of the Comstock Act and other federal pro-life acts.”
Some pro-life activists, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, have called for Blanche to settle the landmark mifepristone case by signing a consent decree.
Other pro-life voices, however, fear such a settlement could be appealed by abortion drug manufacturers, potentially overturned, and overall set back the FDA’s mifepristone review.
