April 14, 2023

Today, Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes was one of nine attorneys general who signed a letter demanding that the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a U.S. Senator, and a Member of Congress retract statements encouraging doctors and pharmacies to ignore a judge’s order banning an abortion drug. 

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have made public statements encouraging these professionals to proceed as though the judge’s order didn’t exist, which the attorneys general say is “akin to a call to overthrow the Constitution.” 

Earlier this week, a Federal Judge in Texas ruled that the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone was improper. The Biden Administration is appealing the ruling. 

In the letter, the attorneys general write: “Expressing mere disagreement with a court order, as all attorneys have done, is nothing like your call for the FDA not to comply with a court order. The difference between the two is enormous. For a party to defy a court order simply because one does not like it is an attack on our very system of government and rule of law.” 

Read a copy of the letter here.