A container holding boxes of Mifepristone, the first medication in a medical abortion, are prepared for patients at Alamo Women’s Clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, April 20, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
A federal appeals court has recently issued restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone, although the immediate impact of this ruling is on hold. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has paused the ruling until the Supreme Court makes a final decision on the case. The Biden administration had requested this pause in April due to previous rulings against the pill at lower courts.
According to the appeals court’s decision, multiple actions taken by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand access to the abortion pill have been deemed illegal. If the Supreme Court upholds this ruling, women will no longer be able to obtain the abortion pill through telemedicine appointments and by mail. Instead, they would need a prescription from a doctor and three follow-up in-person appointments. Furthermore, the time frame for taking the pill would be reduced from 70 days to 49 days into pregnancy.
Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, in the majority opinion, criticized the FDA for not adequately addressing important safety concerns regarding the abortion pill’s usage among women. She stated, “In loosening mifepristone’s safety restrictions, FDA failed to address several important concerns about whether the drug would be safe for the women who use it” and “It failed to consider the cumulative effect of removing several important safeguards at the same time.”
The appeals court upheld the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone in 2000 and its authorization of a generic form in 2019. However, Judge James Ho, in a dissenting opinion, argued that the court should have revoked the FDA’s original approval as well, effectively removing the medication from the U.S. market.
Mifepristone, in combination with misoprostol, is the most common method for terminating pregnancies in the U.S. The court battle over mifepristone comes more than a year after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, abolishing federal abortion rights.
The 5th Circuit’s three-judge panel, composed of judges appointed by Republican presidents, heard oral arguments in May from the FDA, mifepristone distributor Danco Laboratories, and the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a group of anti-abortion doctors.
During the hearing, the FDA and Danco argued that the lawsuit seeking to remove mifepristone from the market is unfounded, lacking in scientific basis, and poses a threat to women’s health. However, the panel of judges pushed back on these arguments, questioning the potential consequences of allowing mifepristone to be obtained via mail without doctor supervision and highlighting the court’s role in scrutinizing the FDA’s actions.
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