The forced birth movement has found a lawsuit and shopped for a judge to take the next step in their national abortion ban: ending access to medication abortions. One of the groups bringing suit in the Supreme Court Dobbs decision that overturned half a century of abortion rights has filed suit in Texas to ban the use of mifepristone for medication abortion.
Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit in Amarillo, representing four anti-abortion medical organizations and four doctors who had treated patients with the drug. It alleges that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not have the authority to approve the use of the drug decades ago when it was cleared, that it did not adequately study the use of the medication, and that the drug is not safe. None of which is true.
“For decades, women in this country have had access to FDA-approved medication abortion as a safe and effective option,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in response to the suit. “As [Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra] said, denying women access to any essential care they need is downright dangerous and extreme.”
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Medication abortion accounts for more than half of abortions in the U.S. In response to the pandemic, the FDA allowed abortion pills to be mailed, which contributed to a significant jump in its use. For decades now, it has been used safely and effectively up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. It has been extensively researched for decades, and has proven safe, effective, and convenient for doctors and patients alike.
There is absolutely no scientific or medical basis for the assertions in this case. It is “an incredibly safe medication,” Loren Colson, a family medicine physician in Idaho and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, told The Washington Post. “It’s been well-studied and much safer than a lot of things you can find over the counter,” Colson said. “If they are trying to argue the safety, they have very little ground to stand on. It’s just a clear and blatant attack on abortion.”
One legal expert who has written extensively about the pill calls the safety claims in the suit “ridiculous.” Greer Donley, associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said, “Mifepristone is one of the safest drugs on the market, safer than Viagra and penicillin,” citing the decades of research: “We have a lot of studies and a lot of data on it.” This case, she said, is “really weak.”
Which is why the group chose Texas, where they could find a friendly federal district judge. They did. The case is going to Trump appointee Matthew Kacsmaryk, one of the young extremists the Federalist Society handpicked. He is vehemently anti-LGBTQ and misogynistic, and so extreme in his anti-LGBTQ writings that Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, voted against him.
His hostility to abortion is no secret. He has described Roe v. Wade as wrongly decided. “On January 22, 1973, seven justices of the Supreme Court found an unwritten ‘fundamental right’ to abortion hiding in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the shadowy ‘penumbras’ of the Bill of Rights, a celestial phenomenon invisible to the non-lawyer eye.”
It’s a junk case with no basis in science or medical research. But we’ve been here before with junk cases, this federal court district, and the 5th Circuit in which it operates. Kacsmaryk will rule for the plaintiffs and possibly even try to put a national injunction on the use of medication abortion. The administration will appeal and it will go to the abortion-hostile 5th Circuit, from where it will be fast-tracked to the Supreme Court.
Will the Supreme Court’s extremists be at all constrained, having witnessed the backlash from the Dobbs decision? Unlikely. They got a standing ovation at the Federalist Society gala a few weeks ago. That’s all that counts.
RELATED STORIES:
The anti-LGBTQ judicial nominee the Senate just confirmed could be on the bench for decades
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Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit in Amarillo, representing four anti-abortion medical organizations and four doctors who had treated patients with the drug. It alleges that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not have the authority to approve the use of the drug decades ago when it was cleared, that it did not adequately study the use of the medication, and that the drug is not safe. None of which is true.
“For decades, women in this country have had access to FDA-approved medication abortion as a safe and effective option,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in response to the suit. “As [Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra] said, denying women access to any essential care they need is downright dangerous and extreme.”
Campaign Action
Medication abortion accounts for more than half of abortions in the U.S. In response to the pandemic, the FDA allowed abortion pills to be mailed, which contributed to a significant jump in its use. For decades now, it has been used safely and effectively up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. It has been extensively researched for decades, and has proven safe, effective, and convenient for doctors and patients alike.
There is absolutely no scientific or medical basis for the assertions in this case. It is “an incredibly safe medication,” Loren Colson, a family medicine physician in Idaho and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, told The Washington Post. “It’s been well-studied and much safer than a lot of things you can find over the counter,” Colson said. “If they are trying to argue the safety, they have very little ground to stand on. It’s just a clear and blatant attack on abortion.”
One legal expert who has written extensively about the pill calls the safety claims in the suit “ridiculous.” Greer Donley, associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said, “Mifepristone is one of the safest drugs on the market, safer than Viagra and penicillin,” citing the decades of research: “We have a lot of studies and a lot of data on it.” This case, she said, is “really weak.”
Which is why the group chose Texas, where they could find a friendly federal district judge. They did. The case is going to Trump appointee Matthew Kacsmaryk, one of the young extremists the Federalist Society handpicked. He is vehemently anti-LGBTQ and misogynistic, and so extreme in his anti-LGBTQ writings that Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, voted against him.
His hostility to abortion is no secret. He has described Roe v. Wade as wrongly decided. “On January 22, 1973, seven justices of the Supreme Court found an unwritten ‘fundamental right’ to abortion hiding in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the shadowy ‘penumbras’ of the Bill of Rights, a celestial phenomenon invisible to the non-lawyer eye.”
It’s a junk case with no basis in science or medical research. But we’ve been here before with junk cases, this federal court district, and the 5th Circuit in which it operates. Kacsmaryk will rule for the plaintiffs and possibly even try to put a national injunction on the use of medication abortion. The administration will appeal and it will go to the abortion-hostile 5th Circuit, from where it will be fast-tracked to the Supreme Court.
Will the Supreme Court’s extremists be at all constrained, having witnessed the backlash from the Dobbs decision? Unlikely. They got a standing ovation at the Federalist Society gala a few weeks ago. That’s all that counts.
RELATED STORIES:
The anti-LGBTQ judicial nominee the Senate just confirmed could be on the bench for decades
Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ending abortion rights for millions
In concurring opinion, Clarence Thomas offers a laundry list of other rights he wants to strike down