Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) used a Thursday meeting of the House Oversight Committee to mock her Republican colleagues’ fondness for erectile dysfunction drug Viagra and also proved that it’s much more frivolous of a medication than mifepristone, which is used by millions of American women to terminate pregnancy.
According to HuffPost, Crockett was questioning FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert M. Califf.
Crockett asked … whether the “medical management of a miscarriage” could potentially be a “life-saving usage” before asking him about Viagra.
“Would you consider erectile dysfunction as a life-saving usage for Viagra?” Crockett asked.
“Not life-saving,” Dr. Califf answered.
“Not life-saving? OK. Well, I’m going to tell you that based on my research, that mifepristone actually has life-saving characteristics,” Crockett said.
The congresswoman then added, “Yet Viagra doesn’t, and for those that don’t know, Viagra, from my understanding, is actually nearly 10 times greater than as it relates to the risk of death. Yet, for some reason, it’s not sitting in the court right now.”
Noting that the FDA does exceptional work testing and approving drugs used by millions of Americans, Crockett ended her comments with this verbal salvo:
“After putting it through the wringer for decades, women’s lives have been saved, and as a representative from the area that Roe v. Wade actually initiated, I am appalled because, for whatever reason, some people want us to go back to horse and buggy in this country,”
A case before the United States Supreme Court, FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, may lead to the banning of mifepristone by American women if the justices decide the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t have the power to approve the use of the drug. That ruling is expected by the end of June.
