Home
.-') _ .-') _
( OO ) ) ( OO ) )
.-----. ,--./ ,--,' ,--./ ,--,'
' .--./ | \ | |\ | \ | |\
| |('-. | \| | )| \| | )
/_) |OO )| . |/ | . |/
|| |`-'| | |\ | | |\ |
(_' '--'\ | | \ | | | \ |
`-----' `--' `--' `--' `--'
lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Conservative states kick off new fight to limit access to abortion pill
mifepristone despite Supreme Court decision
By John Fritze, CNN
Updated:
6:18 PM EDT, Wed October 16, 2024
Source: CNN
Four months after the Supreme Court tossed out a high-profile challenge
to the , and as abortion access is a major flashpoint in the
presidential election, three conservative states are following through
on a promise to bring the issue back to the forefront with a new
lawsuit.
The states – Missouri, Kansas and Idaho – filed an amended suit in
a federal court in Texas asking US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to
rollback efforts the Food and Drug Administration has taken over the
past eight years to ease access to the drug, such as allowing it to be
dispensed through the mail.
The suit may thrust the issue of mifepristone access back on track for
Supreme Court review in the next presidential administration, once
again threatening the widespread availability of the drug even in
states where abortion is legal and at a time when roughly half of
states have imposed severe restrictions on in-clinic abortions.
“These dangerous drugs are now flooding states like Missouri and
Idaho and sending women in these states to the emergency room,” the
states argued in the new lawsuit.
The claim that mifepristone is unsafe has been widely refuted by
mainstream medical organizations. Medication abortions account for
nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the US.
The new lawsuit was filed Friday. In addition to the ability to
dispense the drug through the mail, the states are also challenging the
FDA’s approval of a generic version of the drug and the elimination
of requirements for follow-up doctor visits and that prescribers be
physicians.
The new litigation has landed in a conservative federal courtroom as
abortion has become a central issue in next month’s contest between
former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. During
the in late June, Trump pointed to the Supreme Court’s ruling and
said he agreed with it.
“The Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill, and I agree with
their decision to have done that and I will not block it,” Trump said
at the time. But during a news conference later this summer, Trump
access to the drug. How the FDA regulates mifepristone impacts abortion
access nationwide, including in states where abortion is legal.
Harris has been more clear that she would support the FDA’s approval
and subsequent actions to ease access to the drug. And she has
repeatedly accused her opponent of planning to reduce access to the
drug.
“This ruling is not going to change the fact that Trump’s allies
have a plan that if all else fails to eliminate medication abortion
through executive action, so we must remain clear eyed about the
threats to reproductive freedom in America and we must remain
vigilant,” she after the Supreme Court ruling this year – and
before she became a presidential candidate.
A final decision in the case could have wide ramifications at a time
when the nation is still grappling with the fallout from the Supreme
Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that
established a constitutional right to abortion. The high court’s
controversial ruling prompted many red states to impose bans or
limitations on the procedure, which made access to abortion pills a
target for conservatives and a key concern for reproductive rights
groups.
Fight over standing
The attempt at a legal do-over is a result of the technical ruling the
Supreme Court handed down earlier this year. A unanimous court ruled in
June that the who had filed the original lawsuit were not injured by
the greater access to the drug the FDA’s changes allowed and so they
did not have standing to sue.
The states, which had intervened in an earlier stage of the case, were
barred from doing so at the Supreme Court. They vowed at the time to
amend the initial lawsuit and try again. It’s not at all clear if the
states will even be allowed to bring the suit before Kacsmaryk, given
that the Supreme Court reversed lower courts in the underlying case.
Led by Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, the
states claim they have standing to sue because the FDA’s actions
facilitate violations of state abortion laws “by enabling an
out-of-state abortion drug distribution network.” The states also
claimed the FDA’s moves displaced state laws controlling abortions
for girls in foster care.
The states raised many of the same claims anti-abortion groups tried
previously, including that sending the drugs through the mail violates
a 150-year-old federal law that bans shipping contraceptives and lewd
materials through the US Postal Service.
The anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations who challenged the
FDA rules initially sought to pull mifepristone off the market
entirely. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, previously moved to invalidate
the FDA’s , a sweeping decision that would have removed the drug
from the market entirely, though that ruling never took effect.
The conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals let stand the drug’s
two-decade-old underlying approval. But the appeals court sided with
the doctors who challenged subsequent decisions by the agency that
expanded access to the drug, including the ability to dispense it
through the mail. Those lower court rulings never went into effect
because the Supreme Court intervened and ordered that the status quo
remain in place until the justices reviewed the case.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee, wrote for a unanimous Supreme
Court in ruling against the anti-abortion groups.
“We recognize that many citizens, including the plaintiff doctors
here, have sincere concerns about and objections to others using
mifepristone and obtaining abortions,” Kavanaugh wrote. “But
citizens and doctors do not have standing to sue simply because others
are allowed to engage in certain activities – at least without the
plaintiffs demonstrating how they would be injured by the
government’s alleged under-regulation of others.”
DIR <- back to index