USA – Appeals court judges embrace anti-abortion speculation

BY: SOFIA RESNICK AND KELCIE MOSELEY-MORRIS
MAY 18, 2023

America’s major medical institutions and drug policy scholars have roundly denounced as “pseudoscience” many of the claims brought by anti-abortion groups in a high-profile federal lawsuit asking the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its 23-year-old approval of mifepristone, one half of a two-drug regimen that has become the most common form of pregnancy termination post-Roe v. Wade.

But the appeals court’s three-judge panel that heard oral arguments Wednesday appeared to be persuaded not by the medical consensus in this case, but by some of the evidence brought forward by plaintiffs that consists largely of anecdotes, speculation, and cherry-picked studies brought by a handful of anti-abortion medical groups and doctors.

Continued: https://newjerseymonitor.com/2023/05/18/appeals-court-judges-embrace-anti-abortion-speculation/

USA – Arguments on landmark abortion pill case to be heard Wednesday in appeals court

JENNIFER SHUTT
MAY 16, 2023

WASHINGTON — The lawsuit over access to the abortion pill goes before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Wednesday, the next step on a path that will likely end at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The three-judge panel will decide whether to keep, overturn, or alter a ruling from U.S. District Court from the Northern District of Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who sought to end the prescription medication’s approval in an early April ruling.

Continued: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2023/05/16/arguments-on-landmark-abortion-pill-case-to-be-heard-wednesday-in-appeals-court/

16.05.2023

News

5th Circuit Court of Appeals

Alliance Defending Freedom

Alliance Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

American Society for Reproductive Medicine

Food and Drug Administration

Matthew Kacsmaryk

mifepristone

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine

United States

Human Rights

Law

USA – Here’s what abortion foes have been up to in the year after Dobbs draft leak

Anti-abortion activists have flooded state legislatures with proposals to criminalize pregnancy termination or to add burdensome regulations

BY: SOFIA RESNICK
MAY 3, 2023

Anti-abortion leaders could not stop paraphrasing Winston Churchill last June after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a victory that took 50 years to realize.

“While we celebrate the momentous ruling in Dobbs, we must remember that overturning Roe was not the beginning of the end, but it was the end of the beginning,” said Kristen Waggoner, CEO of the leading anti-abortion law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, on a webcast days after the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Continued: https://www.penncapital-star.com/civil-rights-social-justice/heres-what-abortion-foes-have-been-up-to-in-the-year-after-dobbs-draft-leak/

Canada says it could offer access to mifepristone if the abortion drug is banned in the US

The Supreme Court is deciding whether or not to uphold a ban issued in Texas.

By Mary Kekatos
April 21, 2023

A Canadian health official said on Friday Americans could access an abortion drug up north if a ban is upheld in the United States.

In an April 7 decision, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas ruled in favor of Alliance Defending Freedom -- a conservative Christian legal advocacy group -- and reversed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/canada-offer-access-mifepristone-abortion-drug-banned-us/story?id=98750787

21.04.2023

News

Alliance Defending Freedom

Karina Gould

Matthew Kacsmaryk

mifepristone

Philippe-Alexandre Langlois

The Anti-Abortion Movement Finally Went Too Far for This Supreme Court

Mifepristone will remain legal in blue states, despite a lawless judicial effort to ban it.

BY MARK JOSEPH STERN
APRIL 21, 2023

On Friday evening, the Supreme Court halted U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s unprecedented effort to remove a key abortion drug, mifepristone, from the market nationwide. The order, which appears to be 7–2, ensures that mifepristone will remain legal and accessible in states where it remains lawful to prescribe. Only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito noted their dissents, but not a single justice even tried to defend the decision by Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee whose ruling earlier this month represented a particularly lawless attempt to assert power over the Food and Drug Administration. Friday’s stay sends a strong message to the lower courts that SCOTUS will not entertain this cynical attempt to impose new nationwide restrictions—and potentially even a ban—on abortion.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/abortion-pill-mifepristone-ruling-scotus-stays-legal.html

“You Would Only Need a Week”: How the Next Republican President Could Ban Abortion Nationwide

The fight over the meaning of a Victorian-era law could mean everything for reproductive freedom.

Madison Pauley
April 17, 2023

Two months before a right-wing judge in Texas threw the legal status of the abortion pill mifepristone into limbo, a group of red-state attorneys general ganged up on executives at CVS and Walgreens, trying to stop them from filling prescriptions for the abortion medication through the mail. In a letter citing a federal law that hadn’t been enforced for half a century, the lawyers warned the chains of future criminal prosecution—never mind that mifeprisone has been FDA-approved for decades and used to end the pregnancies of over 5.6 million US women.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/04/mifepristone-comstock-abortion-medication-pill-texas-court-ban/

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

USA – The Shared Anti-Trans and Anti-Abortion Playbook

Some of the very groups that pushed for abortion bans are now coming for trans health care.

By Irin Carmon
Apr 4, 2023

A self-described whistleblower touting her progressive bona fides, claiming patients are being harmed by rapacious medical providers with no regard for informed consent or side effects. A cadre of former patients stating their regret, claiming the existing research on side effects and outcomes is doctored or misrepresented. Conservative legislators swooping in to purportedly protect these patients from themselves or from greedy doctors, lingering on whatever graphic details they can get their hands on. Centrists, and some liberals, wondering aloud if the strident defense of this health care may be political poison for Democrats, and anyway, surely there’s a middle ground to which only the truly reasonable and unemotional folks can lead us. In the meantime, people who can’t afford to get on a plane to a less hostile state are trapped unless grassroots funds come through, and even helping someone get care can put you in the crosshairs. All of this describes Abby Johnson…

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/anti-trans-anti-abortion-activism-playbook.html

‘If we can do it, you can do it’: US anti-abortion groups ramp up activities in UK

Emboldened by victories at home, some of the most prominent American anti-abortion groups are exporting their tactics overseas

Katherine Stewart
Sun 2 Apr 2023

Anti-abortion groups are stepping up efforts to spread US-style abortion politics to the UK, ramping up spending with the ambition of shaking up political life beyond American borders.

Fresh off their historic victory in bringing about the end of the constitutional right to abortion in the US, these groups are importing familiar tactics, including public protests and demonstrations, anti-abortion counseling centers or so-called “crisis pregnancy centers”, and the cultivation of ties with clerical leaders.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/02/us-anti-abortion-groups-uk-far-right