Texas: A Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas has ordered a hold on longstanding approval of a widely used abortion drug, mifepristone.
A federal judge in Texas on Friday suspended US approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, one of the two drugs commonly used for medication abortions, in a closely watched case brought by anti-abortion activists.
But shortly after, a conflicting ruling came out of Washington state, ordering the Food and Drug Administration to refrain from taking any action that would affect the pill’s availability. The two rulings throw the future of the drug into question, increasing the chances that the supreme court will ultimately decide its fate.
The Texas decision, a preliminary injunction issued by US district judge Matthew J Kacsmaryk, orders the FDA to pause mifepristone’s approval while a lawsuit challenging the safety and approval of the drug proceeds.
His ruling, however, doesn’t immediately go into effect, as he gives the federal government seven days to appeal, which federal lawyers representing the FDA are expected to do so swiftly.
The duelling court orders make it likely that the issue will escalate to the US Supreme Court.
Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision could limit access to the drug for millions of women. Legal analysts said the ruling threatened to upend the entire foundation of America’s drug regulatory system.
It comes after the Supreme Court removed constitutional protections for abortion last year, triggering a wave of state-by-state bans.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone in 2000 and, since then, it has been widely used in the country for medication abortions. Judge Kacsmaryk’s 67-page ruling directed the FDA to stay mifepristone’s approval and gave the government seven days to appeal against the order.
The lawsuit in Texas was filed by four anti-abortion groups headed by the recently formed Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine along with four anti-abortion doctors. They sued the FDA in November alleging that it used an improper process when it approved mifepristone and did not adequately consider the drug’s safety when used by girls under age 18 to terminate a pregnancy.
While responding to the lawsuit, the Biden administration has said the drug’s approval was well supported by science, and that the challenge came too late.
Mifepristone is often prescribed along with misoprostol to terminate a pregnancy within the first 10 weeks.
Medical professionals who recommend the combination said they will switch to only prescribing misoprostol if the other becomes unavailable. The single-drug approach has a slightly lower rate of effectiveness in ending pregnancies.
The rulings of the federal judges came nearly a year after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade allowing states to enforce a ban on abortions.
Since the ruling, 12 of the 50 US states now ban abortion outright, while many others prohibit it after a certain length of pregnancy.
