1 of 2 | A three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday was considering whether the abortion pill mifepristone should remain on the market. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI |
License Photo
May 17 (UPI) -- A three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday was considering whether the abortion pill mifepristone should remain on the market.
The panel's work comes as conservative activists and lawmakers continue efforts to halt the drug's availability. The judges on the panel -- Jennifer Walker Elrod, James Ho and Cory Wilson -- were all appointed by Republican presidents.
A group of conservative, anti-abortion medical associations and physicians filed the suit in the matter in November, contending the Food and Drug Administration put politics over science in 2000 when it approved the now commonly used drug to end pregnancies.
The 5th Circuit blocked part of a district court decision to take mifepristone off the market but rolled back the FDA's expansion of its use since 2016. The Supreme Court, though, followed by allowing full access of the drug while it goes through the courts.
"The district court's order would thwart FDA's scientific judgment and profoundly harm women who rely on mifepristone as an alternative to more burdensome and invasive surgical abortions," the Justice Department lawyers told the 5th Circuit earlier.
"Those harms would be felt throughout the nation because mifepristone has lawful uses in every state, even those with restrictive abortion laws," the lawyers said.
The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a religious-affiliated group that the Southern Poverty Law Center called an LGBTQ hate group in 2016, is disputing mifepristone's safety record and the FDA's decision with its own study that says the drug is dangerous and should not be used.
"The FDA must answer for the damage it has caused to the health of countless women and girls and the rule of law by failing to study how dangerous the chemical abortion drug regimen is and unlawfully removing every meaningful safeguard, even allowing for mail-order abortions," ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley said in a statement.
"These illegal actions do not reflect 'scientific' judgment but rather reveal politically driven decisions to push a dangerous drug regimen without regard to women's health or the rule of law."
The Justice Department, in its emergency appeal to the Supreme Court over the original decision by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, out of Texas, said blocking mifepristone would deprive patients of access to safe and effective abortion and called the judge's assessment of the drug's safety "misguided."