California has joined a growing number of liberal states in stockpiling abortion pills in anticipation of a court ruling that could restrict access. Misoprostol is one of the two drugs used for medication abortions. According to Governor Gavin Newsom, his state has moved to secure up to two million pills of misoprostol, one of the two drugs.
The action was taken after a judge in Texas invalidated the long-standing approval of the second pill, mifepristone. The United States Department of Justice has requested a stay of the court’s order. As per BBC, On Tuesday, President Joe Biden described the Texas ruling as “completely out of bounds.” Mifepristone is still available at this time, but Democratic governors in Massachusetts and Washington have said they have secured emergency supplies of the drug in light of the ongoing legal battle.
Maura Healey, the governor of Massachusetts, stated that her state had ordered approximately 15,000 doses of mifepristone, and Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington, stated that his state had purchased a three-year supply of the drug.
Ms. Healey stated on Monday that a judge made a politically motivated decision to overrule physicians, patients, and medical experts and block access to essential medications. Today, we collectively state emphatically: not on our watch. On Monday, the Department of Justice filed an emergency motion to temporarily block US district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s “extraordinary and unprecedented” ruling that invalidated decades of mifepristone approval.
The attorneys for the Biden administration have requested a ruling by April 13, one day before the lower court’s ruling takes effect. Legal experts predict that if the Justice Department is unable to obtain a stay, its attorneys will bring the case before the conservative-dominated Supreme Court within hours.
It is unknown how the justices of the appeals court or the Supreme Court would rule or how access to mifepristone would be restricted if the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was ordered to withdraw approval. A competing decision from Washington, in which a federal judge ordered that access to mifepristone be maintained in 17 liberal states, added to the confusion.
The turmoil has cast doubt on the availability of the drug for millions of women and threatens to deal the greatest blow to abortion access since the nation’s highest court ended the nationwide right to terminate a pregnancy last summer.
More than fifty percent of abortions in the United States utilize the two-pill regimen. Mifepristone terminates a pregnancy effectively, while misoprostol empties the uterus. Misoprostol can be used to terminate a pregnancy on its own, but it is considered less effective.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy organization that represented plaintiffs in the Texas lawsuit, argued that the FDA ignored the potential effects of mifepristone on the developing bodies of adolescent girls during its four-year approval process. Erin Hawley, the firm’s senior counsel, stated that the FDA put women in danger “by illegally approving dangerous chemical abortion drugs and imposing its mail-order abortion regime.” She stated, “Pregnancy is not a disease, and chemical abortion drugs have no therapeutic value.”
The FDA spent four years reviewing mifepristone before approving it and placed it in a category of just 60 drugs that are governed by a system of extra restrictions that are periodically reevaluated. Mainstream medical organizations, such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the World Health Organization, support its safety and efficacy (WHO).
“If the FDA cannot approve this drug [mifepristone], I’m not sure what it can approve,” Georgetown University professor of global health law Lawrence Gostin told the BBC. It has been on the market for over two decades, and its health and safety record is impeccable.
Other legal experts who spoke to the BBC concurred, stating that if the Texas ruling were upheld, the FDA’s authority would be severely weakened, with repercussions for virtually every drug the agency evaluates. Scott Lassman, a lawyer with more than three decades of experience in FDA law and policy, remarked, “It opens the door for virtually anyone to challenge any FDA approval.”
More than 300 pharmaceutical executives, including Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, demanded the reversal of the Texas decision on Monday, calling it a “decision to ignore science.”
