One of the nation’s leading pro-life organizations is praising the ruling of a U.S. district court in Texas last week that stayed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the abortion drug mifepristone nationwide.
Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-Life America State Policy Director Katie Daniel said the ruling out of Texas “is a win for the health and safety of women and girls.”
“The ruling reaffirms that pregnancy is not an illness and abortion is not health care,” Daniel said. “Finally, the FDA is being held accountable for its egregious violation of its own rules to fast-track dangerous abortion drugs to market.”
However, within hours of the ruling by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee, a Washington State federal judge then issued a decision in State of Washington v. United States Food and Drug Administration, which blocked “altering the status quo and rights as it relates to the availability of Mifepristone.”
The Washington ruling, however, applies only in the plaintiff states: Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.
A number of Democrat-led states are reportedly stockpiling abortion-inducing drugs if access to them is restricted, reported the Associated Press (AP) Monday.
According to the report, Democrat Govs. Maura Healey (Massachusetts), Gavin Newsom (California), and Jay Inslee (Washington State) have been purchasing enough mifepristone to be able to terminate the lives of unborn babies for at least a year or more.
Healey said the Texas ruling “harms patients, undermines medical expertise, and takes away freedom.”
“It’s an attempt to punish, to shame, to marginalize women,” she added. “It’s unnecessary.”
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said Monday that the Texas ruling will be overturned.
“It’s hard to overstate how deeply flawed this decision is,” Tong said at a news conference with Gov. Ned Lamont (D) Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz (D), and lawmakers. “Dobbs was flawed, but this is borderline nonsensical in its analysis of the law and the regulatory process.”
Connecticut officials assured residents mifepristone will continue to be accessible in the state for those who want to abort their unborn babies.
The call to hold the FDA “accountable” for its announcement in January of a regulatory change that allowed big pharmacy chains to carry mifepristone in their stores, as opposed to mail-order pharmacies or specified clinics – without full review of its safety risks – has come amid a national firestorm over the agency’s fast-tracking of COVID vaccines, including booster shots for young children, without completion of clinical trials.
In November, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed the lawsuit against the FDA on behalf of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a nonprofit group of roughly 30,000 healthcare professionals:
The healthcare professionals argued FDA demonstrated a reckless and insufficient screening of the drug-induced abortion regimen that includes mifepristone, along with its gradual removal of restrictions that were in place to protect the safety of women.
Ingrid Skop, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., a board-certified OB-GYN who has practiced in Texas for nearly 30 years and serves as senior fellow and director of medical affairs at Charlotte Lozier Institute, emphasized the dangers of drug-induced abortion in a statement:
I’ve performed at least a dozen surgeries on women who experienced complications due to abortion pills, including needing blood transfusions and treatment for severe infections. I’ve also counseled women who experienced significant emotional distress after viewing the body of their easily identifiable child in the toilet. Texas OB-GYNs are regularly called upon to address serious abortion pill complications that Planned Parenthood fails to treat and the FDA hasn’t even bothered to track for years. The FDA’s “see no evil, hear no evil, report no evil” regime puts the life and health of women and girls at risk for the sake of a pro-abortion political agenda.
“The abortion drug regimen rubber-stamped by the FDA has proven disastrous for women as well as unborn children, with the FDA’s own data showing women have died,” Daniel said. “The Biden FDA ignored the science and approved abortion drugs for sale by mail-order, without any in-person doctor visit, which the strong majority of Americans oppose.”
Nonprofit legal organization Liberty Counsel explained the effects of the two rulings:
While the two decisions seem at odds, and certainly cast doubt about the drug’s future, the Texas ruling may carry the most weight for it focused on FDA approval rather than just availability restrictions, and suspended the drug’s approval to be on the market in the first place. The ruling did not go into immediate effect allowing time for the federal government to appeal the decision. The Department of Justice did indeed swiftly appeal the ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals increasing the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately decide the pill’s fate.
SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser noted the dependence of the abortion industry on drugs to induce abortion to prop up its business model following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs that overturned Roe v. Wade.
“In the Dobbs era, the abortion industry has relied on abortion pills as a backstop as more than a dozen states have enacted strong protections for unborn babies and mothers,” Dannenfelser said. “Women deserve to know about all the life-affirming options that are available to them, including nearly 3,000 pregnancy centers and maternity homes nationwide that offer vital services at no cost, as well as safe, effective abortion pill reversal that has saved thousands of babies after their moms regretted making the terrible mistake of taking mifepristone to cause an abortion.”
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Mifepristone” by Robin Marty. CC BY 2.0.
