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This Thursday, a United States appeals court ruled that the abortion pill mifepristone may continue to be used in the country, but with restrictions. Women who want to use the most famous pregnancy-terminating drug in the country will now be able to do so during a shorter period of pregnancy and will not be able to receive the pills by mail. Some measures criticized by the feminist movement, the Biden government and the pharmaceutical industry.
American women and pregnant women will still be able to use the abortion pill. Of course, with some limitations. This was decided this Thursday by an appeals court, who ruled that the abortion pill mifepristone could continue to be used, although it reduced the period of pregnancy during which it can be taken and prohibited the shipment of the drug by mail.
This ruling partly annuls the ruling by Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, of the Northern District of Texas, who last week declared that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone in 2000 was invalid.
However, feminist groups point out that they continue to face a setback in women’s rights. Mifepristone is the most widely used abortion method in the country and measures such as delivery by mail were thought at the time as facilities to access pregnancy termination for pregnant people who so decided.
The most common form of abortion in the North American country usually consists of taking mifepristone -which blocks a hormone that allows the development of a pregnancy- followed by another drug two or three days later, misoprostol, which causes contractions similar to those of an abortion. spontaneous.
In 2016, the period of pregnancy in which the drug can be used was extended from seven to ten weeks and its dispensing by mail was allowed, without the need to go to the doctor’s office. Measures that facilitate access to abortion for low-income people who cannot resort to expensive US healthcare, among other marginalized sectors.
“I’m not here to interpret that, but I’m here to say that WholeWomans knows that medical abortion by mail is central to the post-Dobbs abortion access landscape in the US,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, director of the Whole Woman’s Health network of abortion clinics, through social media.
The 5th circuit issued a ruling. I’m not here to interpret that, but I am here to say that @WholeWomans knows medication abortion by mail is critical to the post Dobbs abortion access landscape in the USA. We have been offering abortion medication by mail for over a year now. 1/2
— Amy Hagstrom Miller (@AmyHM) April 13, 2023
Along the same lines, the Department of Justice said that it will ask the US Supreme Court for an emergency order to stay any action that tries to hinder access to abortion.
“We will continue to fight in the courts, we believe the law is on our side and we will prevail,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday from Dublin on President Joe Biden’s visit to the country.
The sentence has also angered the pharmaceutical sector. On Monday, about 500 industry leaders – such as Pfizer or AbbVie – condemned the sentence and asked that it be suspended.
“By ignoring decades of scientific evidence, the decision creates a dangerous precedent that jeopardizes the approval of all drugs,” notes the joint communiqué.
The 42-page sentence appeared to accept several of the allegations made by opponents of abortion and used some of their terminology: such as “chemical abortion” and even “unborn child” to refer to the fetus. To try to approve the invalidation of the drug, the anti-abortion group assures that mifepristone is unsafe and causes “cramps, abundant bleeding and intense pain.”
However, FDA medical evaluations suggest that its contraindications are typical of abortion drugs. The agency noted “extremely low rates of serious adverse events” with the drug. In fact, of the 5.6 million women who used it in 2022, the health organization recorded 4,200 complications in women, less than 1% of the women who took the drug.
With AP and local media
