The US government asked a federal appeals court on Monday to guarantee access to the abortion pill in the United States. This follows Friday’s nationwide suspension of marketing authorization for mifepristone (RU 486) by a federal judge in Texas, a victory for abortion opponents.
The authorities had one week to appeal before the entry into force of this decision. As of Monday, the administration of Joe Biden asked an appeals court, located in New Orleans, to intervene. This “extraordinary and unprecedented judgment” must be “blocked pending the substantive examination” of the case, said the Ministry of Justice.
A debate about the real risks of the drug
If the Court of Appeal rules before Thursday noon, this will give the ministry time to turn urgently to the Supreme Court of the United States. In its appeal, the government recalls that more than 5 million women have used mifepristone, combined with another cachet, since its authorization by the American Medicines Agency (FDA) in 2000.
When taken according to the instructions, “serious side effects are extremely rare”, of the same order as for a very classic drug like ibuprofen, pleads the government. The administration regrets that the court decided to deprive patients of it “on the basis of its own erroneous assessment of the risks”.
The White House spokeswoman said the move “attacks the authority of the FDA” and risks “opening the floodgates for challenging other drugs.” In an open letter, senior executives from 250 pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Biogen, slammed the ruling for “creating uncertainty for the pharmaceutical industry as a whole” by “ignoring decades of scientific evidence.”
Legal battle
A coalition of opponents to abortion had filed a complaint in November against the FDA to challenge the approval given to mifepristone. She had strategically filed her appeal in Amarillo (Texas) where the only federal judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, was appointed by Donald Trump after working as a lawyer for an ultra-conservative Christian organization.
This magistrate agreed with them this Friday. In particular, he assured, despite the scientific consensus, that mifepristone posed risks to the health of women. He also preferred the term “unborn human” to that of “fetus” and evoked “abortors” to speak of the structures practicing terminations of pregnancy.
Anticipating its decision, a coalition of Democratic states had seized another court at the end of February 2023 to try to preserve this pill which, taken with misoprostol, today represents 53% of abortions in the United States. Less than an hour after the Texan judge’s decision, his colleague Thomas Rice, appointed by Barack Obama and sitting in the State of Washington, considered that mifepristone was “safe and effective” and prohibited the FDA from withdrawing its approval in the 17 States at the origin of the appeal.
Mifepristone stocks in several states
Citing a “strong tension” between the two judgments, the federal government on Monday sent “a request for clarification” to the Washington State court to find out how it should apply its decision. Without taking these precautions, several elected officials on the left have called on Joe Biden to ignore the Texas decision and ensure that mifepristone remains on the market.
In the meantime, several Democratic states have taken the lead in stockpiling abortion pills. Washington State has ordered 30,000 doses of mifepristone, Massachusetts 15,000 doses. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he had stockpiled two million tablets of misoprostol.