Biden calls judge’s abortion drug block ‘out of bounds’

WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden on Tuesday branded a judge’s ruling that would block access to a widely used abortion pill “out of bounds.”

“It’s completely out of bounds what the judge did,” Biden told reporters before departing Washington for a visit to Northern Ireland and Ireland.

On Friday, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former Republican president Donald Trump, overturned the Food and Drug Administration’s two-decade-old approval of mifepristone, which is used for more than half the abortions carried out annually in the United States.

Shortly after the judge in Texas issued his decision, a judge in Washington state ruled in a separate case that access to mifepristone must be preserved.

And the US Justice Department on Monday urged an appeals court on to freeze the Texas ruling.

Biden pledged last week to fight the ruling, saying it was part of a broader effort by Republicans to achieve a nationwide abortion ban.