US appeals abortion pill ruling as states stockpile the drug
- Blocking access to mifepristone – which has been approved in the US for over 20 years – endangers women’s health, the government says
- States like California, Massachusetts and Washington have been working to stockpile the pills, which are widely used for medical abortions in the US
The US government on Monday appealed a Texas judge’s decision to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of a key abortion drug, saying the ruling endangered women’s health by blocking access to a pill long deemed safe.
In a filing with the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the Department of Justice called Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision on the drug mifepristone “especially unwarranted” because it would undermine the FDA’s scientific judgment and harm women for whom the drug is medically necessary.
The Justice Department also said the anti-abortion groups that sought to overturn the FDA’s approval had no right to sue in the first place, saying they could not show they were harmed and had left the approval unchallenged for years.
Kacsmaryk’s decision “upended decades of reliance by blocking FDA’s approval of mifepristone and depriving patients of access to this safe and effective treatment, based on the court’s own misguided assessment of the drug’s safety”, the department said.
The Amarillo-based judge, an appointee of former Republican president Donald Trump, had ruled on Friday that the FDA exceeded its authority by ignoring mifepristone’s risks and relying on “plainly unsound reasoning” when approving it.