The Fifth Circuit just made it even more dangerous to be pregnant in a red state

The Trumpiest court in America just tried to neutralize a federal law requiring most hospitals to provide medically necessary abortions.

By Ian Millhiser
Jan 3, 2024

On Tuesday, a notoriously right-wing federal appeals court attempted to rewrite a federal law that, among other things, requires most US hospitals to provide abortions to patients who are experiencing a medical emergency if a doctor determines that an abortion will stabilize the patient.

The case is Texas v. Becerra, and all three of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s judges who joined this opinion were appointed by Republicans. Two, including Kurt Engelhardt, the opinion’s author, were appointed by former President Donald Trump.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/1/3/24023889/abortion-supreme-court-emtala-fifth-circuit-texas-becerra

03.01.2024

Commentary

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

EMTALA

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

The Abortion Pill Might Just Stand a Chance at the Supreme Court

In a sign that its recent regard for restraint is prevailing, the Roberts court is signaling that it’ll take a narrow approach on mifepristone.

Matt Ford
December 14, 2023

The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it would take up its first abortion-related case since overturning Roe v. Wade last year. Abortion rights groups could not have asked for a better start to it.

In its latest batch of orders, the court said it would take up FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Danco Laboratories v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The consolidated appeals, which all stem from the same original lawsuit, seek to overturn a federal court’s ruling in Texas that, if allowed to take effect, would overturn recent Food and Drug Administration rule changes that made the most widely used abortion pill easier to prescribe and obtain.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/177580/supreme-court-narrow-mifepristone-standing

14.12.2023

Commentary

FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Food and Drug Administration

Jennifer Walker Elrod

The Supreme Court will hear its biggest abortion case since it overruled Roe v. Wade

The justices will decide whether to ban mifepristone, a drug used in half of US abortions.

By Ian Millhiser
Dec 13, 2023

The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it will give a full hearing to a long-simmering dispute over whether far-right federal courts may ban the abortion drug mifepristone.

Mifepristone is part of a two-drug treatment that causes the uterus to expel pregnancy tissue. This two-drug regime, which may be taken up to the 70th day of a pregnancy, is often a safer alternative than surgical abortion — and it is also a less invasive procedure. More than half of all US abortions are medication abortions, which use mifepristone.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/12/13/23992173/supreme-court-abortion-ban-mifepristone-danco-fda-alliance-hippocratic-medicine

Diverse Stakeholders Implore Supreme Court to Preserve Abortion Pill Access

If the justices take up the case, they could hear oral arguments early next year and issue a decision by late June 2024, influencing fall elections.

10/19/2023
by CARRIE N. BAKER

On Thursday, Oct. 12, a wide range of organizations filed 14 amicus curiae briefs supporting a Justice Department petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Fifth Circuit decision imposing nationwide limits on access to the abortion pill mifepristone. Supporting the government’s appeal were reproductive rights organizations, medical and legal experts, patient advocacy groups, 257 members of Congress, 23 states and D.C., over 600 state legislators, state and local governments and officials, and pharmaceutical industry representatives, including GenBioPro, which makes a generic form of mifepristone.

“This legal attack on medical abortion has no basis in law or fact,” said GenBioPro CEO Evan Masingill. “Decades of science support mifepristone’s safety and efficacy. GenBioPro firmly believes that all people, regardless of income, gender, race or geography, have a right to access evidence-based healthcare and safe and effective medicines, and that includes medical abortion.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/19/supreme-court-abortion-pill-mifepristone/

USA – Judge James Ho’s Connections to the Anti-Abortion Movement

An extreme right-wing judge and former clerk for Clarence Thomas, James Ho has close ties to anti-abortion and dark money groups.

10/5/2023
by ANSEV DEMIRHAN and EVAN VORPAHL

In August, three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi) ruled that mifepristone—the most widely used abortifacient, and more commonly known as the abortion pill—could no longer be provided by mail. They imposed a new requirement that the medicine only be administered in the presence of a physician. They also limited the use of this drug to the first seven weeks of pregnancy, even though it is safe to use at least throughout the first 10 weeks.

The ruling did overturn a lower federal court edict from Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk—a Trump-appointed judge who failed to disclose to the U.S. Senate and the American people his recent anti-abortion writings—to revoke the FDA’s 23-year old approval of mifepristone as a safe drug for Americans seeking abortions.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/05/judge-james-ho-abortion/

Justice Dept and abortion pill manufacturer ask Supreme Court to hear case on mifepristone access

BY KATHRYN WATSON
SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Danco Laboratories, the drugmaker of the abortion pill mifepristone, has asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court's decision limiting access to the pill, the company announced in a news release Friday. On Friday evening, the Justice Department also asked the Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit's judgment.

Danco and the Justice Department want the Supreme Court to reverse the circuit court's ruling that would prevent women from obtaining the drug by mail order and would prohibit the pill after seven weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abortion-pill-mifepristone-fda-approval-justice-department-supreme-court/

08.09.2023

News

abortion pill

Danco Laboratories

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Food and Drug Administration

A Trump-Stacked Court Hopes to Limit Access to the Abortion Pill. The Final Decision Now Lies With SCOTUS.

8/17/2023
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals released a decision on Wednesday, Aug. 16, that dismissed a challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of mifepristone, but would sharply restrict access to medication abortion nationwide and eliminate telemedicine abortion. The decision in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA remains on hold until final review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“While the court has acknowledged that mifepristone—both brand and generic versions—can stay on the market, they are insisting we should roll back the clock to 2000 and put the medication under lock and key,” said Kirsten Moore, director of Expanding Medication Abortion Access Project (EMAA Project). “The extremist judges ignored the FDA, our basic rights, and more than 20 years of scientific evidence showing mifepristone is safe and effective, rolling back decades of advancement in the standard of care. This is a dangerous precedent for FDA’s scientific review authority.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/08/17/abortion-pills-fifth-circuit-mifepristone/

USA – Don’t rule out a national abortion ban in 2025

Activists think they have a path to stopping abortions nationwide. It runs not through Congress but through the White House, the Supreme Court, and an arcane 19th-century law.

By Mary Ziegler
May 30, 2023

Almost a year ago, when the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court promised that each state would make its own decision on abortion. At the time, a national statute of any kind seemed impossible. Democrats had tried and failed to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have secured abortion rights nationwide. And once Republicans gained a majority in the House of Representatives, they didn’t try to pass a national abortion ban. Their legislative wish list did not include one, and poll after poll showed that most Americans believed abortion to be a right and wanted it to be legal, especially early in pregnancy.

The antiabortion movement had never wanted the issue left to the states. Since the 1980s, the movement had made sure that the Republican Party platform had a plank endorsing a human life amendment. But in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs ruling, it seemed that there was little chance that antiabortion advocates could get their wish for a national ban.

Continued: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/30/opinion/abortion-ban-comstock-act-mary-ziegler/

USA – The War on Drugs Isn’t Coming for Abortion Pills. It’s Already Here.

A federal judge citing the Purvi Patel case as part of his crusade to declare mifepristone unsafe and remove it from the market nationally is alarming.

APR 26, 2023
JESSICA MASON PIEKLO, Rewire News

The Supreme Court granted a reprieve in the far-right’s fight to upend medication abortion access—for now.

The Court on Friday stayed the order U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk had issued earlier in the month from Amarillo, Texas that purported to pull FDA approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortions. By putting a hold on Kacsmaryk’s lawless order, the Court has maintained the status quo regarding mifepristone access. That means it will be months, if not longer, before anti-abortion advocates will be able to weaponize the courts in their bid to restrict, if not remove entirely, access to the drug.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/04/26/the-war-on-drugs-isnt-coming-for-abortion-pills-its-already-here/

26.04.2023

Commentary

abortion pills

Comstock Act

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

The Supreme Court’s new abortion pill decision, explained

The justices hand down the first decision in the mifepristone litigation saga that is not completely unhinged.

By Ian Millhiser

Apr 21, 2023

The Supreme Court handed down a brief order on Friday in Danco Laboratories v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a lawsuit asking the federal judiciary to effectively ban mifepristone, a drug used in more than half of all abortions in the United States.

The most immediate impact of the Court’s new order is that the justices voted to stay lower court decisions that would have cut off access to mifepristone, at least for the time being. That means that mifepristone remains available, and that patients who live in states where abortion is legal may still obtain the drug in the same way they would have obtained it if this lawsuit had never been filed.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4/21/23686788/supreme-court-abortion-pill-ruling-mifepristone-fda-alliance-hippocratic-medicine