Some U.S. abortion pill restrictions upheld, case bound for top court
Global News
The appeals court's decision overturned part of a lower court ruling that would have revoked the Food and Drug Administration's 23-year-old approval of mifepristone.
New restrictions on access to a drug used in the most common form of abortion in the U.S. would be imposed under a federal appeals court ruling issued Wednesday, but the Supreme Court will have the final say.
The ruling by three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned part of a lower court ruling that would have revoked the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of mifepristone. But it left intact part of the ruling that would end the availability of the drug by mail, allow it to be used through only the seventh week of pregnancy rather than the 10th, and require that it be administered in the presence of a physician.
Even those restrictions won’t take effect right away, because the Supreme Court previously intervened to keep the drug available during the legal fight.
“We are very pleased with the 5th Circuit decision,” Erin Hawley, an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed the Texas lawsuit challenging the FDA approval, said during news conference. Hawley said her organization had not yet decided whether to appeal to the Supreme Court to try to get mifepristone’s approval fully revoked.
The conservative Christian legal group was also involved in the Mississippi case that led to the June 2022 Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion.
The FDA granted access to mifepristone in 2000. The panel’s ruling would reverse changes the FDA made in 2016 and 2021 to loosen some conditions for administering the drug.
“In loosening mifepristone’s safety restrictions, FDA failed to address several important concerns about whether the drug would be safe for the women who use it,” Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote for a panel of three 5th Circuit judges.
She was joined by Judge Cory Wilson. Judge James Ho dissented, arguing to fully uphold a Texas-based federal judge’s April ruling that would revoke the drug’s approval, which the FDA granted in 2000.
