‘I Can’t Imagine Anything Closer to Slavery’: Joy Reid Reacts to Judge’s Ruling That Halts Approval of Abortion Pill

With a federal judge’s ruling Friday to suspend FDA approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, MSNBC’s Joy Reid says women are slowly losing autonomy over their own bodies.

“Women in this country are essentially being told, you are an incubator. The state owns your body the minute that you’re pregnant, and there’s nothing you can do and no one you can turn to. I can’t imagine anything closer to slavery than that,” Reid said.

Mifepristone was approved by the Food and Drug Administration 23 years ago as a safe and effective way to terminate a pregnancy. However, abortion medication has been at the forefront of legal challenges since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which gave women the constitutional right to have an abortion.

U.S. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. Northern District of Texas announced Friday he was issuing a stay on mifepristone and gave the Biden administration seven days to prepare an appeal.

Joy Reid said the abortion restrictions reach far beyond medications.

“We have already seen in the state of Idaho a bill to make it illegal to travel, so they’re already starting to lock women in and say, you can’t move, you can’t travel. And in this case, they’re talking about anyone under 18, but that means an aunt, an older sister, a doctor, they’re trying to frighten people into even helping women.

“We have seen that in Texas with this bounty law. So what you’re seeing is the right to abortion being squeezed by making doctors afraid to treat you, by making your family members afraid to help you, by making an Uber driver afraid to drive you. By saying that, if you travel across state lines or get close to the border in the state of  Idaho, and you might have mifepristone with you, that’s a crime. And in the state of South Carolina, they’re proposing potentially adding the death penalty.”