A Texas lawsuit could have dire implications for access to abortion pills in the entire US.
US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, will decide whether to reverse the Food and Drug Administration’s approval for mifepristone, a drug mostly used to terminate pregnancies.
The lawsuit comes barely a year after Roe v Wade which gave states the power to pass legislation on banning or limiting abortions.
The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, making it easily available through the mail, pharmacy pickup, or telemedicine. Mifepristone is just one of the two pills used to terminate pregnancies and manage miscarriages worldwide.
Patients take mifepristone first and then take misoprostol, also used in treating stomach ulcers, 24 to 48 hours later.
The combination of the two drugs has proven to be 95% effective in causing a miscarriage in pregnancies that are no more than 10 weeks old.
The FDA conducts routine reviews of the drugs to monitor them for safety concerns, and it found that the two drugs were extremely effective with little to no adverse effects on the mother.
Center for Reproductive Rights Senior Counsel Jenny Ma said that the drugs used in the US for over 20 years were incredibly safe.
The lawsuit was filed on November 18 in a Texas federal court by the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF) on behalf of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, made up of medics who oppose abortion.
The ADF’s Senior Counsel, Julie Marie Blake, said they filed the lawsuit to fight for the patients harmed by the abortion drugs.
Blake accused the FDA of failing in its responsibility to protect women from the effects of the chemical abortion drugs, adding that the agency never had the authority and never conducted thorough studies necessary to approve the drugs in the first place.
According to the lawsuit, the FDA did not conduct studies on the drug’s safety under its labeled conditions of use, adding that the agency ignored the potential impacts of the drug’s hormone-blocking regimen on adolescent girls’ bodies.
The lawsuit also claims that chemical abortions cause more problems than surgical abortions and eliminate safeguards for people who go through with them.
If the judge rules in the plaintiff’s favor, then an emergency injunction would block the approval of mifepristone in the country, forcing it to be taken off the shelves everywhere across the country, including hospitals and clinics.
According to experts, removing mifepristone from the market will make abortion care inaccessible for millions of women and girls across the United States.
The FDA released a statement saying that if the drugs, which have been safe and effective for over two decades, are withdrawn from the marketplace, the public interest would be harmed.
