The abortion pill fight continues as a lower court pleaded for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider its decision to lessen the accessibility of the pill, mifepristone (Mifeprex), NPR reported.
The Supreme Court agreed, and arguments will happen sometime next year before the ruling arrives in the summer. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority.
The abortion debate sets this country back to the Roe vs. Wade court case, which allowed women the right to an abortion. In June 2022, the ruling was overturned because lawmakers deemed it was morally wrong.
Before the drug’s overturning, the FDA approved Mifeprex in 2000, which ended pregnancies up to 49 days after a woman’s last menstruation. The agency required the pill be prescribed, and women had to visit their physician three times. The FDA updated its requirements in 2016, allowing patients to obtain prescriptions through telemedicine appointments and mail.
Mifeprex’s popularity grew last year in September after Texas enacted a six-week abortion band with Senate Bill 8, enabling citizens to sue anyone who assisted a woman with an abortion after the six-week mark, MadameNoire reported.
However, on April 7, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Texan anti-abortionist, pushed for the nationwide banning of Mifeprex. Not for health reasons but because it was morally wrong to them.
Never mind the fact that the highest rate of maternal mortality rests among Black women, the CDC reported.
About 17 states pushed against Kacsmaryk’s proposal, advocating for expanding Mifeprex. U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice of Washington state argued that the FDA’s ruling should remain, adding how the agency modified that dosing regimen, allowing patients to use the pill up to 10 weeks of pregnancy instead of seven.
Also supporting the expansion of the use of Mifeprex is the Biden Administration. The Justice Department petitioned to limit access to the pill, writing, “The loss of access to mifepristone would be damaging for women and healthcare providers around the Nation.”
Danco Laboratories, a distributor of Mifeprex, petitioned the court in a written statement Sept. 8, asserting the safety and effectiveness of the pill. It also questioned if courts can “overrule an agency decision they dislike.” Danco affirmed antiabortion doctors had no authority to bring the case.
Danco and the Justice Department highlighted that courts never gave any pushback on any other FDA-approved drug except for one they deemed morally wrong.
The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is against Mifeprex and backed their decision to challenge the FDA’s approval, claiming that the FDA initially required a physician to prescribe in person, which proved the pill had adverse effects.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled against the 10-week pregnancy mark last month.
The pill is accessible for the time being in states where abortion is legal. Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Indiana, Texas, North Dakota and West Virginia are states that banned abortion.
States that restrict abortion based on gestation age are Arizona (15 weeks), Florida (15 weeks), Georgia (six weeks) and Utah (18 weeks).
