Month: April 2023

How the FDA Overregulates Mifepristone and Why it Should Decline to Enforce a Ban

We begin with the dueling decisions of two federal judges ahead of Friday’s deadline when the ruling by the Texas anti-abortion zealot Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk for a nationwide ban on an abortion medication will go into effect. We investigate other cases before the FDA which would have the opposite effect of improving access to the drug Mifepristone with 18 state attorneys general suing the FDA for overregulation that is not justified by the drug’s safety. Joining us is Rachel Rebouché, Interim Dean and a Professor of Law at Temple University Beasley School of Law. A leading scholar in reproductive health law, feminist legal theory, and family law, she is an author of Governance Feminism: An Introduction and the editor of Feminist Judgments: Family Law Opinions Rewritten. We discuss her article at The Guardian which she co-authored with David Cohen and Greer Donley, “To protect abortion access, the FDA should decline to enforce a Mifepristone ban.”

The Intellectual Leader of GOP Insurgents Who Want to Abandon Ukraine to Confront China

Then we look into the intellectual leader of an insurgent wing of the Republican Party that wants to abandon support for Ukraine and concentrate on confronting China over Taiwan. Joining us is Jacob Heilbrunn, a Senior Editor at the National Interest, a columnist for The Spectator and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. The author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, previously he was an editorial writer for the LA Times and a senior editor at the New Republic. We discuss his article at Politico, “Elbridge Colby Wants to Finish What Donald Trump Started: Meet the conservative intellectual seeking to remake the GOP’s foreign policy.”

The New EPA Rules to Ensure Two Thirds of Cars and a Quarter of Trucks Are All-Electric By 2032

Then finally we assess the new rules the EPA laid out today designed to ensure that two-thirds of new passenger cars and a quarter of new heavy trucks sold in the US are all-electric by 2032. Joining us is Luke Tonachel, Senior Director of the Clean Vehicles and Buildings Program in the Climate and Clean Energy Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. His work has encouraged governments to adopt policies that advance clean fuels and the development of energy-efficient vehicles and we discuss this huge step forward in addressing the largest source of climate pollution, transportation.