Another abortion case will come to the Supreme Court in 2024, specifically concerning the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) requirements around prescribing the chemical abortion drug mifepristone.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) represents four doctors and four medical organizations who are challenging the FDA’s approval of abortion drugs to be prescribed in dangerous and incautious ways.
The drug was originally approved in 2000, requiring in-person examinations out of health concerns for the mother. However, in 2021, the FDA made the drug available through virtual medical visits and by mail. In other words, no physical examination involving an ultrasound is required.
In August, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the FDA must restore the safeguards around chemical abortion drugs and prohibit their shipment by mail to protect the health and safety of women in the U.S. The Biden administration then pressured the Supreme Court to hear the case, insinuating that the ruling meant the drug would be taken off the market and that women would lose access to it. Despite a brief in opposition filed with the Supreme Court by ADF attorneys, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case.
Abortion pills now account for over half of abortions in the U.S. Dr. Christina Francis, an obstetrician and gynecologist and chief executive of one of the organizations represented by ADF, shared in a video that these drugs run the risk of causing severe bleeding, infections and inability to carry later pregnancies to term. She described how many women take these medications alone in homes, dorm rooms or hotel rooms, sometimes encouraged by abortionists to pass the fetus in the toilet and not look. “Women who do look are often horrified to find that the baby, who they were told was just a clump of cells, has hands, feet, fingers and toes.”
One study concludes that “significant morbidity and mortality have occurred following the use of mifepristone as an abortifacient.” It revealed 20 deaths and 529 cases of life-threatening adverse events associated with the drug from 2000-2019. Twenty-six of the adverse events involved ruptured ectopic pregnancies, one of which led to death. Francis claims the FDA acknowledges there have been 28 deaths from complications after taking chemical abortion drugs since 2000, “an estimate that is very likely on the low side, considering the lack of reporting and tracking requirements around these drugs.”
“Every court so far as agreed that the FDA acted unlawfully in removing common-sense safeguards for women and authorizing dangerous mail-order abortions,” said ADF Senior Council Erin Hawley. “(The FDA’s) removal of common-sense safeguards—like a doctor’s visit before women are prescribed chemical abortion drugs—does not reflect scientific judgment but rather a politically driven decision to push a dangerous drug regimen.”
Photo: Aleksandr Davydov/Alamy Stock Photo