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

Federal judges grill Biden administration on abortion pill

During a two-hour oral argument, the judges appeared sympathetic to an anti-abortion medical group seeking to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN and JOSH GERSTEIN
05/17/2023

NEW ORLEANS — Three federal judges seemed poised to rule against the Biden administration in its efforts to preserve access to the abortion drug mifepristone.

During an occasionally combative, two-hour hearing Wednesday before a panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges — all Republican appointees — grilled attorneys from the Justice Departments and Danco Laboratories, the pill’s manufacturer, who are battling to keep the drug available in the U.S.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/17/federal-judges-appear-skeptical-of-biden-administration-in-abortion-pills-case-00097477

USA – Abortion pill legal challenge threatens miscarriage care

One of the most widely used treatments for miscarriage is in jeopardy

By LAURA UNGAR AP Science Writer
May 6, 2023

Less than a year after losing her daughter Emilia at five days old, Jillian Phillips suffered a miscarriage. It was Halloween weekend in 2016, and her doctor said she could wait for it to end naturally, have a surgical procedure or take medication.

She chose the medicine, passed the remains of her nine-week pregnancy at home and buried them in a memorial garden, near some of Emilia’s ashes.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/abortion-pill-legal-challenge-threatens-miscarriage-care-99136739

Abortion pill mifepristone remains legal for now. What happens next?

UT law professor Stephen Vladeck discusses what’s to come in the ongoing legal challenges to abortion after the Supreme Court voted to preserve access to the abortion pill.

By Glorie Martinez and Laura Rice
April 24, 2023

Last Friday, the U.S. awaited action from the Supreme Court in the biggest case involving abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned. That case traces back to a recent ruling by federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, who revoked FDA approval for the abortion pill mifepristone which has been widely available since the early 2000s.

Within minutes of the Amarillo ruling, another federal judge in Washington State issued an order for the FDA to keep mifepristone available – a direct challenge to competing court orders. To prevent regulatory chaos, the Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

Continued: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/abortion-pill-mifepristone-remains-legal-for-now-what-happens-next/

24.04.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

Danco Laboratories

Food and Drug Administration

US supreme court blocks ruling limiting access to abortion pill

Federal judge in Texas ruled in early April to suspend FDA-approved mifepristone used in more than half of abortions in US

Poppy Noor and agencies
Sat 22 Apr 2023

The supreme court decided on Friday to temporarily block a lower court ruling that had placed significant restrictions on the abortion drug mifepristone.

The justices granted emergency requests by the justice department and the pill’s manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, to halt a preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge in Texas. The judge’s order would significantly limit the availability of the medication as litigation proceeds in a challenge by anti-abortion groups.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/21/abortion-pill-ruling-latest-news-supreme-court-decision

22.04.2023

News

American Civil Liberties Union

Reproductive Freedom Project

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

“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/

U.S. Supreme Court puts temporary hold on ruling that limits access to abortion drug

The decision means that, at least for now, women can still obtain mifepristone by mail as the legal battle continues.

April 14, 2023
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a court decision that prevents patients from obtaining the key abortion pill mifepristone by mail.

In a brief order issued by Justice Samuel Alito, the court put on hold in full a decision issued by Texas-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk that handed a sweeping victory to abortion opponents. Both the Justice Department and Danco Laboratories, which makes the brand version of mifepristone, Mifeprex, had asked the court to immediately step in.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/drugmaker-asks-supreme-court-block-abortion-pill-ruling-rcna79694

Justice Department and abortion pill manufacturer ask appeals court to freeze judge’s order that could make drug unavailable after Friday

By Tierney Sneed and Ariane de Vogue, CNN
Mon April 10, 2023

The Justice Department and a manufacturer of medication abortion drugs asked a federal appeals court on Monday to put on hold a judge’s ruling that could make the drug unavailable nationwide after Friday.

The requests, filed on Monday before the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, are seeking a short-term administrative stay as well as a long-term stay pending appeal on a lower court ruling from US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who ordered the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug to be suspended.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/10/politics/abortion-pill-justice-department-freeze/index.html

USA – What plaintiffs targeting abortion pill want might not even be possible

BY: SOFIA RESNICK
MARCH 25, 2023

At the center of the federal anti-abortion lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is the abortion drug mifepristone and the regimen that reportedly accounts for the majority of abortions in post-Roe America. That’s why the whole country is bracing itself for a ruling from a notoriously anti-abortion judge in Amarillo, Texas.

The attention and confusion around this case might end up being the most impactful aspects about it, as many legal scholars doubt the judge has the legal authority to do what plaintiffs are asking for, which boils down to forcing the FDA to essentially recall a drug that for two decades has maintained a record of efficacy and safety. But regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome, legal experts still think a ruling that even briefly or partially favors plaintiffs will likely have lasting consequences on U.S. abortion access and affect medication policy beyond abortion.

Continued: https://lailluminator.com/2023/03/25/what-plaintiffs-targeting-abortion-pill-want-might-not-even-be-possible/