Nancy Mace Gets It

Tom Williams/AP

The November midterms proved it. So too, did the most important race of 2023 when Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly chose a progressive judge for their supreme court:  Abortion rights win elections. 

Yet, despite the issue’s resounding success on the ballot after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, Republicans have only lurched deeper to the right. But after a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas suspended the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone late Friday, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) broke with her Republican colleagues to agree with Democrats in calling on the Biden administration to ignore the unprecedented ruling. 

“This is an FDA-approved drug. Whether you agree with its usage or not, that’s not your decision,” she told CNN in an interview Monday. “That is the FDA’s decision.”

“When you look at the law the judge used,” she said, referring to the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-obscenity law, “this thing should be thrown out.”

The remarks, which echoed similar observations from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in the wake of Friday’s ruling, add to Mace’s ongoing criticism of her party as it continues to lose elections largely over its extreme positions on reproductive rights. After Friday’s ruling, which officially ushered in the next chapter of the anti-abortion movement’s crusade to federally ban all abortions, Mace’s comments land as a rare moment of moderation in a party that has told members to stay extreme.