A federal judge on Friday awarded another resounding victory to opponents of abortion in the United States, by withdrawing the authorization to market the abortion pill mifepristone, approved more than two decades ago and used each year by hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Ten months after the historic ruling of the Supreme Court that gave each state in the country the freedom to decide on abortion in their territory, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, known for his conservative position, issued from the state of Texas (south) a decision that is supposed to be applied throughout the country.
One of his colleagues in Washington state, however, considered that the marketing authorization for mifepristone (RU 486) could not be withdrawn in at least 12 Democratic states. Therefore, it will be up to the Supreme Court, whose composition was reformulated by former Republican President Donald Trump (2017-2021) during his tenure and with a conservative majority, to clarify the situation.
Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling will not be effective immediately because it gave the government time to appeal, something the Justice Department already announced this Friday that it will do.
reactions to the decision
“My administration will fight this decision,” President Joe Biden anticipated in a statement released by the White House. If this ruling is upheld, each regulated drug will be vulnerable to “these kinds of ideological and political attacks,” added the Democratic president.
Earlier, the attorney general and secretary of Justice, Merrick Garland, had stated in a statement that the Biden government “strongly disagrees with the decision” of the court, and that the ruling “contravenes the expert opinion of the FDA (the agency federal drug decision maker, ndlr), handed down more than two decades ago, that mifepristone is safe and effective.”
For US Vice President Kamala Harris, this “unprecedented decision today threatens the rights of women in the country to make decisions about their health and their ability to access medicines prescribed by their doctors.”
The anti-abortion group SBA Prolife America, for which this pill puts the health of those who take it at risk, praised the decision, which it considered “a victory for the health and safety of women and girls.” Its director of Political Affairs, Katie Glenn, said she hoped that “the dangerous disregard for the lives of women shown by the FDA for two decades will soon be corrected.”
“We will not allow this unfair decision to prevent access to abortion pills”, which can be sent by “alternative routes”, has already indicated Elisa Wells, founder of the Red Plan C organization. Part of a treatment consisting of two drugs that is used for abortion, mifepristone can be used in the United States during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. It has a long history of safety, and the FDA estimates that 5.6 million Americans have used it to terminate pregnancies since it was approved in 2000.