The nation’s top health official said on Sunday that a court ruling that threatens the availability of one of the key drugs used in medical abortion was not America’s “and he did not rule out that he could follow the judge’s order if necessary.” would ignore.

We want the courts to overturn this reckless decision, Xavier Becerra, President

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Biden’s health secretary, told CNN’s State of the Union. We want, yes, women to continue to have access to a drug that has been proven to be safe. Millions of women have used this drug around the world.

He stressed that women will have access to the abortion medication mifepristone for now after a Texas federal judge, Donald Trump appointee Matthew Kacsmaryk, put Friday’s ruling on hold for a week to allow federal officials to appeal. The drug was approved in 2000 by the Food and Drug Administration, which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services headed by Becerra.

Biden said his administration would challenge the ruling in Texas. Kacsmaryk’s 67-page order gave the government seven days to appeal.

We intend to do everything we can to make sure it’s available to them not only within a week, but ahead, period, because mifepristone is one of the safest and most effective drugs we’ve had in the last 20 years seen to help women with their health

care, especially abortion care, Becerra said.

Asked if he might recommend that the FDA override a ban, Becerra said

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Everything is on the table.”

There is uncertainty about access to the most commonly used abortion method in the United States following two separate and conflicting court decisions in Texas and Washington over the legality of mifepristone.

Kacsmaryk’s decision to withdraw federal approval for mifepristone overturned decades of scientific approval. But a ruling almost at the same time in Washington state by U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, a Barack Obama appointee, directed U.S. authorities not to make changes that would limit access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats filed a lawsuit. an attempt to protect availability.

Becerra said Kacsmaryk’s order could have serious implications for the legality of any FDA-approved drug, such as vaccines, insulin or new Alzheimer’s drugs coming to market, as it tries to streamline the entire FDA approval process. to put head.

The former California attorney general acknowledged that the case is likely to eventually be decided by the Supreme Court, which has ruled Roe v. Wade destroyed last year.

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access to abortion across the country.

If a judge decides to substitute his preference, his personal opinion, for that of scientists and medical professionals, what drug will not be subject to some kind of legal challenge? So we have to go to court, he said.

What you saw in that one judge in that one court, in that one state, that’s not America, Becerra added. America goes by the evidence. America does what is fair. America is doing what is transparent and we can show that what we are doing is for the right reasons.