A Texas judge ruled Thursday that three other states can move forward with efforts to overturn federal rules and make access difficult for people across the country. Abortion drug mifepristone.
Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri filed their claims in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas. The only judge based there is Matthew Kacsmarik, a nominee of former President Donald Trump who previously ruled in favor of a challenge to the pill’s approval.
States are asking the federal Food and Drug Administration to ban prescriptions from telemedicine visits. for mifepristone And it mandates use only during the first seven weeks of pregnancy, rather than the current 10-week limit. They also want to require three in-person visits to obtain medication, rather than just one.
The states argue that efforts to provide access to the pill would “undermine state abortion laws and obstruct state law enforcement,” according to court documents.
Meanwhile, Kaksmarik said a person should not be automatically exempt from lawsuits in Texas just because they are out of state.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously last year upheld access to mifepristone in a narrow ruling that found the abortion opponents who filed the lawsuit in the first place had no legal right to sue. He said the case should have been resolved at the time of the decision.
Kaczmarik’s decision “leaves the door open for extremist politicians to continue attacking medical abortion in his courtroom,” the ACLU said.
The ruling was issued just days before Trump began his second term as president, so the Trump administration is likely to represent the FDA in this case. President Trump has repeatedly said that abortion is a state, not federal, issue, but he has also emphasized in his campaign that he has appointed Supreme Court justices who were in the majority to strike down national abortion rights in 2022. I was doing it.
Since then, abortion opponents have increasingly targeted abortion pills, largely because most abortions in the United States are performed using drugs rather than surgical procedures. So far, Republicans have introduced bills aimed at banning the pill in at least four states: Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire and Tennessee. No state has taken the same approach as Louisiana, which classified the drug as a controlled dangerous substance last year.
Previously, Mr. Kaczmalik sided with anti-abortion doctors and groups who called for the FDA to completely revoke mifepristone’s approval in 2000.
But each state is pursuing a narrower agenda. Rather than aiming for approval outright, they sought to roll back a series of FDA updates that would ease access.
But while state leaders are pushing to severely restrict access to drugs, voters in Missouri will vote on a ballot measure in November to lift one of the nation’s strictest prohibitions. When I approved it, I sent another message. Abortion is prohibited at all stages of pregnancy in Idaho. Abortion is generally legal in Kansas until the 22nd week of pregnancy.
Nationally, 13 states under Republican legislative restrictions ban abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and four states prohibit abortion at any stage of pregnancy, before the woman even realizes she is pregnant. Abortion is prohibited after 6 weeks.
Some Democratic-controlled states have enacted laws that protect doctors from investigation and prosecution who prescribe pills through telehealth appointments and mail them to patients in states where the ban is prohibited. These prescriptions are a major reason why the study found that residents of states with the ban are receiving about the same number of abortions as before the ban was implemented.
Mifepristone is typically used in combination with a second drug for medication abortions and has accounted for more than three-fifths of all abortions in the United States since the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. There is.
This drug is different from Plan B and other emergency contraceptives, which are usually taken several weeks before a woman realizes she is pregnant and within three days of a potential pregnancy. Studies show they are generally safe and complete the abortion more than 97% of the time, which is less effective than procedural abortions.
The fight over abortion
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