US abortion pill ruling: what happened and what’s next?

Texas judge’s ruling to halt mifepristone approval was contradicted by a second ruling, throwing the drug’s future into doubt

Poppy Noor
Sat 8 Apr 2023

A federal judge in Texas on Friday suspended the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of the two drugs commonly used to end a pregnancy, throwing the future of the drug into question.

District court judge Matthew Kacsmaryk stayed his order, a preliminary injunction, for seven days to give the FDA time to appeal. Less than an hour after the Friday ruling, another federal judge in a separate case in Washington state directly contradicted Kacsmaryk’s ruling, ordering the FDA to refrain from making any changes to the availability of mifepristone.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/07/abortion-pill-ruling-explainer-mifepristone

US abortion pill access in doubt after Texas judge suspends approval

Ruling on mifepristone, widely used for medical abortions, sets up legal showdown as Washington state issues conflicting order

Poppy Noor and agencies
Sat 8 Apr 2023

A federal judge in Texas on Friday suspended US approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, one of the two drugs commonly used for medication abortions, in a closely watched case brought by anti-abortion activists.

But shortly after, a conflicting ruling came out of Washington state, ordering the Food and Drug Administration to refrain from taking any action that would affect the pill’s availability. The two rulings throw the future of the drug into question, increasing the chances that the supreme court will ultimately decide its fate.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/07/abortion-pill-ruling-mifepristone-trump-judge-matthew-kacsmaryk

Fears mount around ‘catastrophic’ abortion pills case as decision nears
Conservative judges likely to decide fate of Texas lawsuit seeking to ban mifepristone nationwide

By Caroline Kitchener and Perry Stein
February 5, 2023

Abortion rights advocates delivered a stark warning to the Biden administration’s top health official in a private meeting last week: It’s time to take seriously “fringe” threats that could wind up blocking abortion access across the country. Driving their anxiety is a Texas lawsuit brought by conservative groups seeking to revoke the decades-old government approval of a key abortion drug.

The suit has been widely ridiculed by legal experts as rooted in baseless and debunked arguments. But in recent weeks, abortion rights advocates and some in the Biden administration have grown increasingly concerned that the case is likely to be decided entirely by conservative judges who might be eager for a chance to restrict abortion access even in Democrat-led states, where the procedure has remained legal since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/05/abortion-pills-texas-lawsuit/

A Trump-appointed Texas judge could force a major abortion pill off the market

February 1, 2023
Sarah McCammon

A case before a federal judge in Texas could dramatically alter abortion access in the United States – at least as much, some experts say, as the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision last year, which overturned decades of abortion-rights precedent.

A decision is expected soon in the case challenging the Food and Drug Administration's approval more than 20 years ago of the abortion drug mifepristone, which a growing number of patients use to terminate pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153593174/mifepristone-abortion-pill-federal-texas-lawsuit-restrict-access-nationwide

USA – The new front in the right’s war on abortion

Abortion pills are at the heart of the fight over abortion access in a post-Roe world.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Jan 9, 2023

The Biden administration helped expand access to medication abortion last week, with the US Food and Drug Administration finalizing a rule to make the pills more readily available in pharmacies. But this effort to help patients get pills to end a pregnancy could be dwarfed by a major push to restrict access to the medication from anti-abortion leaders and their Republican allies.

As lawmakers head back to state legislatures this month, many for the first time since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, Republicans face new pressure to restrict access to the combination of abortion-inducing drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, used typically within the first 10 to 12 weeks of a pregnancy. Medication abortion has become the most common method for ending pregnancies in the United States, partly due to its safety record, its lower cost, diminished access to in-person care, and greater opportunities for privacy.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/9/23540562/abortion-pills-medication-dobbs-roe-mifepristone

USA – Advocates warily eye legal challenge to abortion pills

BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL
Dec 3, 2022

Reproductive rights advocates are on edge over a lawsuit to revoke the decades-old Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of mifepristone, which, if successful, would end legal access to abortion pills nationwide.

Advocates and legal experts say the suit has no merit, but they fear conservative courts will think otherwise.

Continued: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3760312-advocates-warily-eye-legal-challenge-to-abortion-pills/

USA – The next abortion fight could be over wastewater regulation

Abortion opponents plan to use environmental laws to curb access to pills used to terminate an early pregnancy

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
11/23/2022

Abortion opponents and their allies in elected office are seizing on an unusual strategy after suffering a wave of election defeats — using environmental laws to try to block the distribution of abortion pills.

The new approach comes as the pills mifepristone and misoprostol, which people can take at home during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, have become the most common method of abortion in the U.S. and virtually the only option for millions of people in states with laws that have forced clinics to close since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/23/abortion-pills-opponents-environmental-laws-00070603

Abortion access in two ‘stalwart’ states in the South a focus of post-Roe court fights

By Tierney Sneed and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Mon August 8, 2022

Just how far people in the South will have to travel to access abortion care will be defined by legal challenges unfolding in Louisiana and Georgia.

Almost every state in the Southeast bans the procedure or limits it to all but the earliest stages of pregnancy -- with laws that were allowed to go into effect with the Supreme Court's reversal this summer of Roe v. Wade. But abortion rights advocates are fighting in state court for orders blocking those restrictions.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/politics/abortion-south-georgia-louisiana/index.html

USA – The Next Abortion Warriors

The Next Abortion Warriors
Meet the two lawyers who are preparing to argue the first abortion case to come before the Supreme Court since Brett Kavanaugh came aboard.

January 27, 2020 Issue, The New Yorker
(posted online Jan 20)
By Laura Lane

An invitation for a cocktail party honoring lawyers, especially highly skilled ones who are about to argue one of the most momentous cases of the year—the next Supreme Court abortion case—tends to read like a legal document. “Guests are invited to come and go as they please,” noted a message from the Center for Reproductive Rights, a legal-advocacy nonprofit. The party was held in the kitchen at the center’s offices, in a high-rise in the South Street Seaport. The two lead attorneys on June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee (not quite as catchy as Roe v. Wade) whom attendees had come to meet—Julie Rikelman and T. J. Tu—talked with guests while such phrases as “Bogus sham laws!” and “Second-class citizens!” ricochetted around the kitchen island.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/27/the-next-abortion-warriors