New Orleans, United States.- The nationwide ban on abortion pills ordered last month by a Texas federal judge but partially stayed by the Supreme Court will have a chance to stick.
A federal appeals court in New Orleans, made up primarily of Donald Trump appointees, will hear arguments on Wednesday from pro-life activists seeking to ban the abortion pill mifepristone, with potentially far-reaching impact on abortion access across the United States. Joined.
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit will hear appellate arguments on US District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s order in Amarillo, Texas, which stayed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval. in English) of mifepristone.
Kacsmaryk points out that the FDA improperly approved the drug in 2000.
Anti-abortion and medical groups, led by the recently formed Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, will defend Kacsmaryk’s order.
Danco Laboratories, which sells the drug under the brand name Mifeprex, is expected to argue before the panel.
The Biden Administration is expected to argue that the plaintiffs have no right to bring the case, because they are not harmed by the approval of mifepristone, and that the drug’s safety is supported by decades of data and real-world use.
The three judges on Wednesday’s panel, appointed by Republican presidents and two by Trump, are staunchly conservative, with a record of opposing abortion rights.
The appeals court will not issue a decision on Wednesday, but a possible reinstatement of the abortion pill ban would return the issue to the Supreme Court just as the 2024 election cycle begins to heat up.
The Circuit will now consider whether to allow Kacsmaryk’s order to take effect. The Biden Administration wants the appeals court to block the Texas order.
The legal fight over mifepristone began in November when a conservative legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a lawsuit in Amarillo challenging the FDA’s approval on behalf of anti-abortion physicians and medical organizations.
Lawyers for the group say the plaintiffs filed a citizen petition with the FDA in 2002 asking officials to review the drug’s approval, but the petition was rejected in 2016.
Their lawsuit alleges that the FDA expedited the drug’s approval without sufficient scientific evidence through a process reserved for expediting the approval of drugs used to treat diseases such as cancer and HIV.
He also takes issue with several subsequent agency decisions to loosen restrictions on the pill, including a 2016 move to extend the window of use from seven weeks gestation to 10 weeks and a more recent decision allowing the pill to be dispensed. by mail.
FDA lawyers have defended all of the agency’s decisions, arguing that officials followed the law when they approved the drug’s use and that mifepristone remains a safe and effective method of terminating a pregnancy.
The government also argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because the plaintiffs waited too long to file their complaint after the drug was approved and their citizen petition was rejected.
